Misery continues from ‘pothole-plagued’ roads in East of England

A pothole has been filled every four minutes, every day, for 10 years in the East of England, but still the backlog of carriageway repairs would cost more than £2 billion in the region.

The figures, from this year’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report, spell more misery for Essex road users.

Nearly one in every six miles of the local road network – equivalent to 3,600 miles in the region – reported to have less than 5 years’ structural life remaining.

Meanwhile, roads are only resurfaced, on average, once every 105 years in the East of England.

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 partly to the short-term nature of the allocation of funding, this 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 received a record 78% response rate from local authorities, including all of those in the East of England.

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 cuts and 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.

The Asphalt Industry Alliance are calling on Government, "particularly now with a Comprehensive Spending Review ahead", to set a minimum five-year increase in investment with budgets ring-fenced specifically for local roads maintenance.

Across the East, £2.1 billion is required, as a one-off, for local authorities in the region to bring the roads up to ‘ideal’ conditions.

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.

“The lack of investment in our roads is a false economy as it just leads to bigger repair costs in the future – something local authorities can ill-afford. In the meantime, all road users continue to pay the price with uncomfortable journeys, avoidable breakdowns and repair bills that they only incur because potholes are so bad.”

The findings of ALARM 2025, which relate to the 2024/25 financial year, show 44% of roads have less than 15 years’ structural life remaining – more than 10,500 miles.

132,780 potholes have been filled in the East at a cost of £9.6 million.

Cllr Adam Hug, Transport Spokesperson, Local Government Association, said:

“It is no surprise to councils that the local roads repair backlog continues to rise, given inflation and huge demand pressures on local government statutory services.

“The funding increase in the last Budget was positive and must now be followed by a commitment in the Spending Review to a long-term financial package to tackle this backlog and put it into reverse.

“Councils have long called for a five-year funded package for maintaining our local roads, ensuring they are treated on a par with our motorways and major trunk roads, which is supported by this latest report."

Edmund King, President of the AA, said: “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."

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