It says the extra investment could repair or prevent more than 9.5 million potholes, the equivalent of around 64,000 in every council area. Overall capital funding allocated to councils for local road maintenance this year was £1.39Bn – down 22% from last year – although Government did allocate £500M for highway maintenance this year as part of a five year potholes fund announced in March 2020.

The LGA also says that future capital allocations should take into account rising inflation affecting highways maintenance costs.

“Councils are working hard to keep our roads safe and resilient, repairing potholes as quickly as they can. However, it would already take £10Bn and more than a decade to clear the current local roads repair backlog, with the pandemic and subsequent cancellation of key planned works risking extending this backlog further,” said Local Government Association transport spokesman David Renard.

“With long term and consistent investment in local road maintenance in the Spending Review, councils can embark on the widespread improvement of our roads that is desperately needed, to the benefit of all road users up and down the country.”

Motoring group the RAC’s head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes commented: “For years local authorities have been working with wafer thin budgets and it’s now time for the Government to see local roads as the strategic asset they really are. We continue to call on the Treasury to ringfence a proportion of existing fuel duty revenues for local road maintenance.

“With guaranteed funding, councils would be able to better plan their maintenance schedules and focus not only on reactive repairs but on preventing their roads from crumbling.”

(Photograph: RAC)