Currently reading: Government pledges £500m for pothole repairs in 2021/2022
Latest instalment of £2.5bn Potholes Fund comes as part of a renewed focus on infrastructure maintenance

The Department for Transport (DfT) has allocated £500 million to UK local authorities for essential road maintenance - enough to fill in 10 million potholes.

The investment comes from the £2.5 billion Potholes Fund, which will provide £500m annually from until 2024/2025, as detailed in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s 2020 budget in March last year.

According to the DfT, the average pothole costs around £50 to fill in. This dedicated fund, it said, will go towards “making thousands of local roads both safer and easier to drive and cycle on”.

In total, the DfT has allocated more than £1.1 billion to national road maintenance over the course of 2021/2022.

Transport minister Baroness Vere said: “We know potholes are more than just a nuisance: they can be dangerous to drivers and cyclists alike and cause damage to thousands of vehicles every year.

“The funding allocated today will help councils ensure roads in their area are kept up to standard and that the potholes that blight road users can be dealt with promptly.” 

The government has recently stepped up its financial support package for UK road infrastructure, pledging £27bn - the largest investment yet - to road maintenance, operations and renewal as part of the Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2). 

By 2050, there are planned to be 20 new road connections for UK ports and airports, more than 100 new motorway junctions and 4000 miles of new road. 

READ MORE

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JCB reveals high-speed pothole repairing machine

Felix Page

Felix Page
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Felix is Autocar's news editor, responsible for leading the brand's agenda-shaping coverage across all facets of the global automotive industry - both in print and online.

He has interviewed the most powerful and widely respected people in motoring, covered the reveals and launches of today's most important cars, and broken some of the biggest automotive stories of the last few years. 

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289 15 February 2021

At £50 per pothole the work is not being done properly and is wasting taxpayer money.

We have seen much of these ridiculous 'snake-like' pothole filling machines in our part of the countryside. No repair made by them has lasted more than two months, because it doesnt key to the hole, and mostly  (on a warm day) is lifted out by the first tractor tyre that drives over it.

We have also seen repairs being made when the pothole is full of snow or slush in freezing temperatures with the same dire results.

If the money they are spending was their own instead of ratepayers, such  calous & profligate wastage would never happen. Its a tickbox excercise, and nothing more -moving the problem forward a few months at most.

Marc 15 February 2021
289 wrote:

At £50 per pothole the work is not being done properly and is wasting taxpayer money.

We have seen much of these ridiculous 'snake-like' pothole filling machines in our part of the countryside. No repair made by them has lasted more than two months, because it doesnt key to the hole, and mostly  (on a warm day) is lifted out by the first tractor tyre that drives over it.

We have also seen repairs being made when the pothole is full of snow or slush in freezing temperatures with the same dire results.

If the money they are spending was their own instead of ratepayers, such  calous & profligate wastage would never happen. Its a tickbox excercise, and nothing more -moving the problem forward a few months at most.

Along with venting your frustration on this site, as a matter of interest, have you contacted your local Councillor or MP, or the local authority responsible for road repairs (likely to be your County Council or Unitary Authority).  Like you say, a lot of time, minor patch repairs are carried out by teams on a rolling basis until more permantent repairs or resurfacing works can be carried out.  It isn't necessarily down to calous spending of your money, but more to do with budget and manpower constraints.

Rio160703 15 February 2021

Maybe!! Might it be better if they spent a bit more and resurfaced the roads instead?