Pothole cash allocation announced

The Government has released details of how a £50m pothole fund is to be divided up between English councils. The cash will be split among 118 authorities. Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin said the government wanted to “tackle the blight of potholes”. Devon council is to receive the most cash. The Local Government Association says it will take £12bn to fix the roads.

The money is the first tranche of a £250m Pothole Action Fund. The funding has been calculated according to the “size of the local road network in the area”. It sees Devon County Council receiving almost £2m towards filling 36,830 holes while Slough gets £43,000 to help fill 811.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin revealed how much councils will get to tackle potholes. He said: “I know how important well-maintained roads are to people across the country. Almost every journey starts and ends on a local road, so the government is giving councils £250m specifically to tackle the blight of potholes in their area.”

The order in which the regions will receive cash is as follows (highest first):

• South West
• South East
• East
• North West
• West Midlands
• East Midlands
• Yorkshire & Humberside
• North East

Matt Dyer, Managing Director of LeasePlan, commented on the Government announcement:

“It’s interesting to see how the government plans to divide up the pledged £50 million Pothole Action Fund between English councils. Although this is a welcome first pot there is still an awful long way to go in repairing Britain’s pothole-ridden roads. According to local authorities last year, it will take another £10.5 billion to fill in every single pothole that is currently on the road. With this in mind, we might ask whether this ‘so called’ permanent pothole fund is enough.

“Filling in potholes, however, is no substitute for modernising Britain’s road network. Part of the reason why there are so many potholes, in the first place, is because the roads are aged and decrepit. Only time will tell, but with the extreme wet weather, more cars on the road than ever, and the lowest fuel prices since August 2009, it’s looking more like potholes may be a permanent ongoing fixture on our roads.”