£201 million for pothole repairs

The government has announced that an extra £50 million will be given to councils to improve potholes on local roads.

The Department for Transport funding, part of a £201 million road surface allocation, will reward examples of councils' best practice, with Transport Secretary Chris Grayling saying that the total funding could resurface more than 1,000 miles of roads across England.

A guide for pothole repairs has also been published, developed alongside the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport.

Grayling said: "Every motorist knows that potholes have been a problem in the last few years. That is why the government is continuing to step up its funding to local authorities to address this. It is now up to highways authorities to innovate and use new technologies to solve the problem."

Martin Tett, Transport spokesman for the Local Government Association, said: “Potholes are the scourge of all road users and this funding is good news to help councils repair them and pioneer innovative ways to stop them forming in the first place.

“While innovation will help councils who are fixing a pothole every 17 seconds, funding challenges remain for local authorities to deal with long term maintenance of their local roads and address a backlog of road repairs which has risen to nearly £10 billion to provide better roads that are safer and more resilient to constant use.

“This is why we have called on the government to also invest the equivalent of 2p of existing fuel duty to bring our roads up to scratch. Long term funding will help to avoid more costly short term repairs. The government needs to address this in the forthcoming Spending Review.”