The Liberal Democrats have committed to spending £300m over the next Parliament to fill 1.2 million potholes a year.
The party says it will redirect funds from the road-building budget to address the ‘pothole postcode lottery’, where some councils take up to 18 months to fix a pothole.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: ‘Only the Liberal Democrats have a real plan to fix the state of our roads by giving the money to local councils, who know their roads and are best placed to fix them.’
Responding to the announcement, RAC head of policy Simon Williams warned £300m ‘won’t even scratch the surface’.
‘While we agree with the premise of guaranteeing councils more road funding, the real question is whether the Lib Dems – and indeed the Labour party – would ensure the £8.3bn of funding the Conservatives had reallocated from HS2 to fix local roads is still given to local authorities should they win power,’ he said.
‘Without this sum, which itself is only enough to resurface 3% of all England’s council-run roads, the Lib Dems’ promised £300m won’t even scratch the surface of the UK’s pothole problem.’
Check out AIA chair Rick Green's feature: The great pothole repair failure.
For more on what local government stakeholders want from the next government, check out the following articles from our NextGov series:
NextGov: What the next government should do for children’s services
NextGov: Scrapping the two-child benefit cap
NextGov: Revitalising local democracy
UNISON: To whoever forms the next government…
NextGov: Boosting social mobility
NextGov: Planning under the next government
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