The mileage of local roads in England being resurfaced or treated to avoid potholes has fallen to its lowest level in five years, research has shown.
There has been a decline of almost one-third in the total amount of life-extending road maintenance by local councils, according to analysis of government data by the RAC motoring organisation.
Only 1,123 miles of roads were surfaced in 2021-22, compared with 1,588 miles in 2017-18, while only 3,551 miles, down from 5,345 miles four years earlier, were maintained with surface dressing – the more cost-effective preventative method, according to the road repair industry.
The RAC said the figures helped explain the decline in England’s roads – widely described as “pothole-plagued” this year with an estimated repair backlog of £12bn – and called on the government to do more to help councils maintain roads, including ringfencing funding.
It found that of 153 roads authorities surveyed, 31% did no resurfacing, while 51% failed to carry out any surface dressing.
Simon Williams, the head of policy at the RAC, 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.”
He said local authorities should take a more preventative approach to make budgets go further, and called on the government to increase roads funding.
The Local Government Association (LGA) said the huge backlog was caused by years of funding cuts, followed by recent inflation in the cost of repairs.
Shaun Davies, chair of the LGA, said: “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.”
He said that the government should help motorists by working with councils “to develop a long-term, fully funded programme to bring our roads up to scratch”.
MPs also called on ministers to ringfence road funding and give long-term settlements to councils, in a report issued by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Better Roads.
The MPs said that road conditions had worsened since a dedicated pothole fund ended in 2021. Only 50% of England’s local roads are now classified as good, the lowest level since 2016, according to asphalt industry data cited in the report.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “It’s for local authorities to maintain their highways, and to help them do that we’re investing more than £5bn from 2020 to 2025, with an extra £200m 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.”
