A pothole has been filled every 18 seconds, every day, for 10 years* in England and Wales, but still the backlog of carriageway repairs has reached new heights at almost £17 billion.
The figures, from this year’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report, spell more misery for road users with one in every six miles of the local road network – equivalent to 34,600 miles – reported to have less than five years’ structural life remaining. Meanwhile, roads are only resurfaced, on average, once every 93 years.
Image: AiA
David Giles, Chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), which commissions the ALARM survey, said: “Over £20 billion has been spent on carriageway maintenance in England and Wales over the last decade.
“However, due to the short-term allocation of this funding, it has resulted in no quantifiable uplift in the condition and resilience of the network.
“In fact almost all (94%) local authority highway teams reported that, in their opinion, there has been no improvement to their local network over the last year: a view no doubt shared by the majority of road users.”
The ALARM survey reports local road funding and conditions in England and Wales based on information provided directly by those responsible for the maintenance of the network. This year’s survey, the 30th, received a record 78% response rate from local authorities.
Over the past three decades ALARM has reported a repeated pattern of short-term cash injections in an effort to stem the accelerating decline in road conditions, followed by longer periods of underfunding.
“There needs to be a complete change in mindset away from short-term to longer term funding commitments,” added David Giles.
“Local authorities do their best with the resources available. Nevertheless, they have told us they need their budgets to more than double for the next five to 10 years if they are going to be able to address the backlog of repairs.
“That is why we are calling on Government, particularly now with a Comprehensive Spending Review ahead, to set a minimum five-year funding horizon and a substantial, sustained increase in investment with budgets ring-fenced specifically for local roads maintenance.
“Investing to save** in local roads would allow authorities to plan and provide better value for money for taxpayers and deliver a more resilient network while helping kickstart the Government’s economic growth plans.”
RAC Head of Policy, Simon Williams, added: “Once again, these figures paint a bleak picture of the state of the nation’s roads and confirm what a majority of drivers have known for a long time – that in far too many parts of the country, road surfaces are simply not fit for purpose.”
AA President, Edmund King, said: “A dismal ‘two steps forward, three steps back’ picture of the UK’s pothole plague has emerged in ALARM’s latest report. The UK is nowhere close to getting out of this rut.
“However, pothole-related breakdowns recorded by the AA, the UK’s biggest motoring organisation, showed a very slight year-on-year dip in incidents. While that doesn’t guarantee that the UK has turned a corner, it offers some hope that increased funding will eventually make a difference.
“Unfortunately, ALARM’s increasing £17 billion backlog of road repairs once again underlines the size of the task ahead.”
The findings of ALARM 2025, which relate to the 2024/25 financial year, show that in England and Wales:
- Local authorities would have needed an extra £7.4 million each last year to maintain their network to their own target conditions and prevent further deterioration.
- £16.81 billion is now reported to be required, as a one-off, for local authorities to bring the network up to their ‘ideal’ conditions.
- 52% of the network has less than 15 years’ structural life remaining – more than 106,000 miles.
- Roads are only resurfaced, on average, once every 93 years.
- 9 million potholes have been filled at a cost of £137.4 million.
The full ALARM survey report will be available to download from 00:01 hours on Tuesday 18 March 2025 at: www.asphaltuk.org
