Resurfacing and treating of England’s local roads has fallen to a four-year low, according to new figures.
Just 1,123 miles of roads were surfaced in the 2021/22 financial year, down 29 per cent compared with four years earlier (1,588 miles), says the RAC after its analysis of government data.
The motoring organisation said the figures ‘confirm worst fears about the overall decline in the state of the country’s roads’ and many councils are ‘barely scratching the surface’ when it comes to getting their roads up to a reasonable standard.
In a separate report, Halfords said poorly maintained roads have had repercussions for almost half of drivers it polled who said their vehicle has been damaged as a result – and it costs them an average of £922 to fix.
Resurfacing and treating of England’s local roads has fallen to a four-year low, according to new figures. Pictured: workmen repairing a road in Reading
As well as a huge drop-off in resurfacing of England’s potholed and generally battered local roads, the RAC found an even greater decline in instances of ‘surface dressing’ – the term used when councils partially repair a section of tarmac, which is cheaper than completely resurfacing it.
This was carried out on 3,551 miles in total in 2021/22 – a 34 per cent drop from 5,345 miles repaired in 2017/18.
Of the 153 roads authorities included in the latest data, 31 per cent did no resurfacing while 51 per cent failed to carry out any surface dressing.
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The average length of road resurfaced for all authorities over the 12 months was just 13 miles while it was 42 miles for surface dressing.
Kent resurfaced the most miles of A road at 29 of its 502 miles (5.8 per cent) while Lincolnshire did the most surface dressing at 50 miles of the 661 miles of A road in its area (7.6 per cent).
Looking at B, C and unclassified roads, Hertfordshire led the way in resurfacing by replacing 41 miles (1.5 per cent) of its 2,759 network roads and Norfolk topped the table in surface dressing by treating 326 miles of its 5,627 roads (5.8 per cent).
In percentage terms however, Southend-on-Sea resurfaced the greatest proportion of its 21-mile A-road network at 13 per cent (3 miles) while Blackpool surfaced dressed 43 per cent (11 miles) of its 26 miles of A-road.
For B, C and unclassified roads Tower Hamlets did the largest proportion of resurfacing at 14 per cent (21 miles of its 152-mile network) and Reading surfaced dressed 15 per cent (34 miles) of its 224-mile network.
The RAC said the figures demonstrate the need for the Government to change the way it funds local roads maintenance.
It wants a proportion of the money raised through fuel duty to be ringfenced to give councils certainty over long-term funding.
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These maps show the proportion of council-controlled local roads that have been surface dressed in 2021/22
The average length of road resurfaced for all authorities over the 12 months was just 13 miles while it was 42 miles for ‘surface dressing’ – the term used for partially fixing a damaged road. Pictured: A road works crew working on a local road in Buckingham
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: ‘These figures paint an incredibly stark picture of road maintenance in England and confirm our worst fears about the overall decline in the state of the country’s roads.
‘While the Government has made more money available to authorities to fill potholes, it’s the general reduction in road improvement work that’s causing potholes to appear in the first place.
‘It’s abundantly clear that councils in so many areas are barely scratching the surface when it comes to getting their roads up to a reasonable standard, and indeed the fact that such a large proportion haven’t done any surface dressing or resurfacing at all over a 12-month period really does say it all.
‘Resurfacing is expensive but for some roads this will be the only course of action as they have fallen into such bad condition that nothing else can save them.
‘Having said that, we urge authorities to make greater use of surface dressing and other preventative treatments which can be used successfully to improve surfaces and extend the lives of roads.’
Annual road maintenance budgets in the UK were halved from £4billion to £2billion from 2016 to 2019, according to a recent report by the LGA
Last month, the Local Government Association (LGA) revealed that spending on fixing potholes on local roads in Britain had fallen faster than nearly all other major economies.
Annual road maintenance budgets in the UK were halved from £4billion to £2billion from 2016 to 2019, while several high-income countries increased what they spent by up to 50 per cent in the same period.
Local road repair budgets had dropped more in the UK than in nearly all OECD nations – a group of 38 ‘high income countries’ – in almost two decades.
READ MORE: There is a machine available to councils to repair their roads – here’s an in-depth look at JCB’s PotholePro
Spending in Sweden, Denmark, the US, Japan and New Zealand increased by around half over the same period, while budgets were protected in France, Finland and Canada.
The only OECD countries to see similar drops in spending to the UK are Italy and Ireland.
Shaun Davies, who chairs the LGA, said today: ‘Decades of reductions in funding from central Government to local road repair budgets has left councils facing the biggest ever local roads repair backlog.
‘This has been compounded by recent extreme weather as well as rising inflation, pushing up the cost of materials such as bitumen.
‘In order to support motorists, the Government should take this opportunity to work with councils to develop a long-term, fully-funded programme to bring our roads up to scratch.’
A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘It’s for local authorities to maintain their highways, and to help them do that we’re investing more than £5billion from 2020 to 2025, with an extra £200million announced at the Budget in March, to resurface roads up and down the country.
‘We’ve also brought in new rules to clamp down on utility companies leaving potholes behind after carrying out street works.’
A whopping 45% of UK drivers polled by Halfords said their car has been damaged by poorly maintained roads in the last 12 months. And the average repair bill is a whopping £922
Almost half of drivers say their vehicle’s been damaged by poorly maintained roads in the last 12 months
A recent poll of 2,013 UK drivers found that 45 per cent have suffered damage to their vehicle caused by poorly maintained roads in the past year.
This has cost drivers an average of £922 in repair bills, according to data provided by Halfords.
Unsurprisingly, potholes are the main culprit, causing damage to more than a quarter (27 per cent) of UK drivers’ vehicles in the last 12 months, and leading to an average of £718-worth of damage.
Multiplying the average repair bills by the percentage of all UK licence holders, Halford believes the total bill for motorists in this country is eye watering.
It has estimated a £16billion-worth of damage caused by poorly maintained roads, and £7.5billion-worth caused by potholes specifically in the past year alone.
Aside from potholes, damage was most commonly caused by road debris such as loose tarmac, or uneven or damaged road surfaces.
Despite the enormous – estimated – repair bills for damage caused by potholes in the past 12 months, a Freedom of Information request by the retailer revealed that 27 UK councils (those who responded to the FOI request) paid out a total paltry sum of £907,552 to motorists in compensation over the same period.
One council – West Northamptonshire – received 849 claims from motorists for pothole damage in the past 12 months, but paid out just one claim, totalling £148. This is a success rate of 0.1 per cent of claims.
Worcestershire County Council, meanwhile, boasted of its ‘good defence rate for highway claims’ and confirmed it paid out ‘between one and five claims’, totalling £1,370.
Some councils pay out far more. Top of the league table is Wiltshire County Council, which paid out 42 per cent of the claims it received totalling £95,292.
But nationally, just 13 per cent of claims made received any pay out whatsoever from the local council.
Halfords also issued an FOI request to councils and local authorities to find out how much they had paid out to drivers in pothole-related compensation last year. Just 13% of claims made by motorists were successful, the retailer said
Halfords chief executive Graham Stapleton said the figures are ‘very worrying’ and that they ‘highlight the true cost of the lack of investment in UK roads’.
Following a long-running Daily Mail campaign, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed in the March Budget statement that the Government is to increase its Potholes Fund – which provides money to councils in England to tackle the issue – by £200million to £700million for the current financial year.
READ MORE: The six step guide to making a pothole compensation claim
However, experts a days later said this increase in funding will barely touch the sides in terms of the nation’s estimated road repair bill.
The cost of bringing pothole-plagued local roads in England and Wales up to scratch has been calculated at £14billion by the Asphalt Industry Alliance in its latest edition of the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey published in April.
Paul Boss, chief executive of industry body the Road Surface Treatments Association, said: ‘Proactive surface treatment maintenance programmes, backed up by a risk-based approach to resurfacing the worst roads, have been proven to keep roads in better condition for longer, and that’s why private road operators use them.
‘Vitally, they help to prevent damage caused by the freeze-thaw cycle where water gets into defects in surfaces, freezes and expands, causing cracks and potholes.
‘Surface dressing, which is the most well-known treatment, maximises life expectancy by making roads last three to four times longer than without the preventative treatment, and with very little carbon generation.’
| Council District/County Council | # of Requests for claims | # Claims Paid | Average £ paid out per claim | Total paid out | % Paid out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Northamptonshire Council | 849 | 1 | £148.48 | £148.48 | 0.12% |
| Worcestershire County Council | 134 | 1-5 | n/a | £1,370.22* | 1.87%* |
| Durham County Council | 116 | 2 | £164.39 | £328.78 | 1.72% |
| East Riding of Yorkshire Council | 126 | 3 | £632.00 | £1,896.00 | 2.38% |
| Dorset Council | 239 | 4 | £246.38 | £985.52 | 1.67% |
| Gloucestershire County Council | 602 | 10 | £214.70 | £2,147.00 | 1.66% |
| Herefordshire Council | 223 | 17 | £556.65 | £9,463.05 | 7.62% |
| Nottinghamshire County Council | 1,228 | 25 | £399 | £9,975.00 | 2.04% |
| Central Bedfordshire | 748 | 27 | £222.22 | £5,999.94 | 3.61% |
| Cornwall Council | 315 | 35 | £237.86 | £8,325.10 | 11.11% |
| SuffolkCounty Council | 348 | 71 | £222.35 | £15,786.85 | 20.40% |
| Kent County Council | 1645 | 86 | £192 | £16,512.00 | 5.23% |
| NorfolkCounty Council | 471 | 98 | £334.00 | £32,732.00 | 20.81% |
| West Sussex County Council | 1045 | 108 | £299.88 | £32,387.04 | 10.33% |
| Warwickshire County Council | 422 | 114 | £388.00 | £44,232.00 | 27.01% |
| Westmorland and Furness Council | 492 | 133 | £310.72 | £41,325.76 | 27.03% |
| Derbyshire County Council | 471 | 150 | £237.92 | £35,688.00 | 31.85% |
| Hampshire County Council | 1,212 | 152 | £257.11 | £39,080.72 | 12.54% |
| Hertfordshire County Council | 1852 | 181 | £352.81 | £63,858.61 | 9.77% |
| East Sussex County Council | 1805 | 196 | £385.00 | £75,460.00 | 10.86% |
| Lincolnshire County Council | 1558 | 223 | £207.12 | £46,187.76 | 14.31% |
| Devon County Council | 1,311 | 239 | £192.00 | £45,888.00 | 18.23% |
| Cambridgeshire County Council | 1789 | 244 | £271 | £66,124.00 | 13.64% |
| Surrey County Council | 3,354 | 257 | £389.61 | £100,129.77 | 7.66% |
| Staffordshire County Council | 1867 | 258 | £226.25 | £58,372.50 | 13.82% |
| Oxfordshire County Council | 1416 | 285 | £203 | £57,855.00 | 20.13% |
| Wiltshire Council | 973 | 408 | £233.56 | £95,292.48 | 41.93% |
| Source: Halfords – Freedom of information request made to all UK county councils in August 2023. Figures based on the 27 of the 36 UK councils which responded to the request | |||||
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