Potholes
Background
Potholes have become a symbol of what is wrong with our society - unloved, unkempt streets and a failure to fix basic infrastructure. The importance of dealing with potholes to voters is self-evident given how frequently they are a focal point of political campaigns.
Adverse weather events, driven by climate change, will place more pressure on our roads. Excessive heat can cause our roads to buckle and crack, whilst flooding can result in the erosion of our roads and pavements. The expected increase in the number of frosts will also damage our roads, as water in the cracks and pores of the asphalt freezes and expands.
The safety risk potholes pose should not be underestimated. In 2022 alone, 215 cars and 42 pedal cycles were involved in injury collisions with poor or defective road surfaces contributing to the accident.
Potholes pose a very real danger to cyclists. Cycling UK states that over the past seven years road defects have caused over 250 cases of serious injury or death. However, the real figures are likely much higher as many will go unreported. We need to make our roads safer and empower more people to feel safe to cycle, giving them a greater sense of freedom to choose this affordable, sustainable, and efficient form of transport.
Potholes are costly to drivers. A 2025 survey by the road safety charity IAM RoadSmart found that potholes cost drivers an average of £320 between 2023 and 2024.
The backlog for repairs is at a record high. The 2026 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey Report priced the backlog of carriageway repairs in England and Wales at a record high of £18.62 billion.
Labour’s actions in Government
The government has committed to spend £7.3 billion in capital funding on local highway maintenance between 2026 and 2030. It predicts that nearly 7,000 miles of road will have been resurfaced this year, saving the average motorist nearly £600 on repairs.
The government has sought to strengthen incentive funding requirements for highway maintenance. An incentive fund scheme was introduced under the Coalition Government and came into force under the 2015 Conservative Government, with councils completing annual self-assessments to grade their performance. The Labour Government has made the allocation of incentive funding contingent on the publication of a highways maintenance transparency report. The report has to demonstrate that the local authority has spent all its highway maintenance funding on highway maintenance and that it has published an updated highways asset management policy and strategy. In addition to the report, local authorities have to submit evidence to the Department for Transport that their highways maintenance team has recently undertaken professional learning related to highways maintenance.
Policy recommendations for councillors
Apply to operate a lane rental scheme. Lane rental schemes are designed to incentivise roadworks to take place during off-peak hours and increase efficiency. They help to reduce disruption, congestion, and air pollution. They enable local highway authorities to charge work promoters a daily rate capped at £2,500 on the busiest roads at the busiest times for the duration of the roadworks. 50 percent of the surplus from the schemes must be spent on highway maintenance, such as fixing potholes and drainage improvements, with the other half spent on measures to reduce the disruption and other adverse effects caused by roadworks. Therefore, introducing more lane rental schemes will reduce congestion for local communities and help ease the pressure on constrained council budgets. Currently, highway authorities have to develop proposals for lane rental schemes and then apply either to their combined authority mayor or, if there is not a mayor in place, to the Secretary of State for Transport to operate a scheme. You can find out more about applying to operate a scheme here.
Cut bureaucracy to make it easier for highway authorities to operate lane rental schemes. To accelerate the rollout of lane rental schemes, the government should introduce a national lane rental scheme for England, which local authorities could opt in to. The current layers of bureaucracy required to apply for and manage a lane rental scheme are a challenge for smaller local authorities with more limited staff and budget. A national scheme would provide some clear directives such as the percentage of roads which could be included in a lane rental scheme and the daily rate paid by works promoters during the disruption. Local authorities would then have full control over which roads could be subject to lane rental provisions. Currently the legislation prescribes a set of complicated criteria which a road must meet to be included in the scheme. This change would meaningfully devolve powers to councils, which are equipped with local knowledge.
Call on the government to amend the ‘Well Managed Highway Infrastructure: A Code of Practice’ to make clear how councils should assess and manage the impact of potholes for all road users. It was encouraging to see the recently updated “Well-managed highway infrastructure: a code of practice” more explicitly recognise that the condition of edges, kerbs, and transitions can impact cyclists’ safety. However, the guidance could have provided further clarity on how these risks might manifest themselves to assist councils in their investigative work. You can read Cycling UK’s highway maintenance briefing which spotlights the type of defects which are particularly dangerous for cyclists.
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