UK road and pothole repairs fall to lowest level in five years

Of the 153 authorities sampled, 31% haven't carried out resurfacing works in the past five years

Government slammed as RAC report finds 29% repair reduction; would now take 11 years to put everything right

The length of road being resurfaced or otherwise improved in the UK has fallen to its lowest point in five years, analysis by the RAC has revealed.

The automotive services provider found a 29% reduction in the number of miles of road completely resurfaced from 2017/2018 to 2021/2022, with 1588 miles done in 2017/2018 and 1123 miles done in 2021/2022.

It was also found that, of the 153 road authorities sampled by the Department for Transport (DfT), 31% didn't carry out resurfacing works, while 51% didn't carry out surface-dressing work, wherein the lifespan of a road is extended without the need for full resurfacing.

Surface dressing itself was also found to be down on 2017/2018 levels by 34%.

This comes after news earlier this year that council compensation to road users affected by defects in the road could have repaired 340,000 potholes.

However, a survey from the 2023 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (Alarm) claims that local authorities in England would have needed an average of an extra £7.7 million each last year to reach their own target road conditions, and it would now cost £14.02 billion and 11 years to bring the network up to a standard from which it could be maintained efficiently.

The RAC's 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."

Council areas found to resurface the highest proportion of their roads were Kent, freshening up 29 miles of its 502-mile A-road network, and Southend-on-Sea (in Essex), at 21 miles. Lincolnshire surface dressed most of its A-roads, at 50 miles out of 661.

Rick Green, chairman of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, said: “To really improve conditions and create a safe, resilient and sustainable network, what’s needed is a longer-term funding horizon from central government with more highway budget ringfencing. This would help local authority engineers to plan effectively and implement more efficient works to protect and enhance the resilience of the local road network.”

Autocar has approached the DfT for comment on this.

Potential solutions recommended by the RAC include asphalt preservation, which is designed to seal and maintain roads to prevent water ingress and the repetitive freeze-thaw cycle that causes roads to deteriorate. This technique is already used by private companies on so-called green and amber roads, such as the M6 Toll and M40, and is used to reduce costs.

Further to the traffic-light system, which road authorities use to categorise roads based on their need for repair, Road Surface Treatments Association chief executive Paul Boss said: “There has never been a more important time to undertake preventative maintenance on roads in what we call green and amber conditions, even where pothole repairs may well be required before the surface dressing can be undertaken. 

"The preventative dressing on green and amber carriageways will keep them in a safe and serviceable condition, enabling authorities to manage their red roads that require high investment."

It was also suggested that surface treatments would cut traffic delays as a result of repair times shortened from days to a matter of hours, doing without the need for road closures.

It was also announced earlier in the year that the DfT tabled a £5.5 billion clampdown on road-surface defects, including strict reviews to be carried out post-work in the form of performance-based inspections. 

The cost of the review billed to the firm responsible for the road was £50 per inspection plus a further £120 for follow-ups. It was joined by an additional £200m allocated to pothole repairs.