A new report has revealed that roads in England and Wales are being pushed to their limits due to potholes, with repairs reaching an eight-year apex. According to the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), the current financial year has seen the expectation for councils to repair two million potholes, marking a 43% increase from the previous year and the highest count since 2015-2016. While ministers have announced that they are taking decisive action to fund road repairs at £150m this year, the AIA’s annual report found that 47% of local road miles were rated in good condition, with 36% seen as merely adequate and 17% noted as poor.
However, average highway maintenance budgets have indeed increased by 2.3% in the 2023-24 financial year when compared with the previous 12 months. Nevertheless, the rising costs caused by inflation have reduced local authorities’ budgets to actual cutbacks. The amount required to resolve the piling backlog of local road repairs has reached a record of £16.3bn – that is a 16% increase from the previous year’s £14bn.
Rick Green, AIA Chairman, stated that “the rate at which local roads are suffering is accelerating towards breaking point”, further adding that “local authorities have a bit more money to spend this year but… they have actually been able to do less with it.’ He then remarked that “couple this with the effects of the extreme weather we are increasingly facing” and the situation becomes dire.
Even though potholes might rarely cause a significant issue, frequent contact with them can generate a considerable amount of damage to suspension, tyres and steering systems, hence posing a risk to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. Signs have, as a result, emerged in Daventry, Northamptonshire welcoming people to “Pot Hole City” and “Pot Holy Island.” While daffodils have been planted in the potholes of The Isle of Man in a guerrilla gardening attempt to highlight the issue. The government has pledged to provide £8.3bn in extra funding over 11 years towards the repair of potholes in England as part of the Network North strategy utilizing savings from the cancellation of the planned HS2 extension north of Birmingham
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