Councils across the country will be required to publish annual progress reports on what they are doing to tackle potholes if they are to access £1.6bn of highway maintenance funding.
In April, local authorities in England will start to receive their share of the £1.6bn fund, including an extra £500m. However, the Government has said that if they fail to publish annual reports setting out what they are doing to fix potholes then 25% of the uplift will be withheld.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: ‘British people are bored of seeing their politicians aimlessly pointing at potholes with no real plan to fix them. That ends with us.
‘We’ve done our part by handing councils the cash and certainty they need – now it’s up to them to get on with the job, put that money to use and prove they’re delivering for their communities.’
The latest Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) found that £16.81bn is required to bring the network up to their ‘ideal’ conditions.
AIA chair David Giles told LocalGov last week that local authorities need long-term funding packages rather than short-term cash boosts to ‘arrest the declining condition of our roads.’
Cllr Adam Hug, transport spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: 'Councils already spend more than they receive from central government on tackling potholes and repairing our roads.
'However, it’s in everyone’s interests to ensure that public money is well spent. This includes the Government playing its full part by using the Spending Review to ensure that councils receive sufficient, long-term funding certainty, so they can focus their efforts on much more cost-effective, preventative measures rather than reactively fixing potholes, which is more expensive.'
