Send pothole-patching councils back to road repair school

Teach councils that don’t stop potholes forming about road maintenance: that’s the key message from the RAC, which has just written to the Government in an effort to ultimately help improve the condition of Britain's crumbling roads.

The RAC has partnered with the UK’s Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) and both firms claim many roads are left untreated, unnecessarily leading to the formation of potholes, which are then patched over without addressing the core issue with preventative maintenance such as surface redressing.

In fact, Government data shows that in the 2023/24 financial year half of the authorities did not carry out any surface redressing or the like on A-roads in their constituency. Furthermore, a third of councils did not do so on B, C and unclassified roads, highlighting how this type of maintenance has become more uncommon in recent years.

So why are councils favouring, in the words of PM Kier Starmer, a "sticking plaster approach”, rather than preventative methods? 

If you ask the RSTA’s chief executive, Mike Hansford, it’s all down to what he describes as “knowledge gaps” which are, in turn, “leading to poor road maintenance decisions that are neither cost-effective or carbon-efficient”. 

It’s worth pointing out that 2024 did see a slight uptick in the amount of roads that were treated; last year saw 38.5 million square metres of surface redressing material applied to UK roads. However, while this represents a nine per cent boost year-on-year, it’s less than two thirds of what was laid down back in 2012.

This year, the Government has invested an additional £1.6 billion into local road infrastructure maintenance, with the majority of the funds having been redirected from cash originally promised for the installation of HS2.

Head of policy at the RAC, Simon Williams, explained how the Government has already asked councils to explain how much preventative maintenance they plan to perform in order to ensure cash is being spent effectively.

“A logical next step is requiring mandatory training for authorities that have carried out little or no preventative maintenance to fully understand its benefits,” said Williams. “More extensive training would also help bring an end to the culture of temporarily fixing potholes and resurfacing end-of-life roads, which is a very expensive maintenance strategy and one which leads to only a small proportion of the road network being repaired.”

All of this comes after the Government published its draft Road Investment Strategy, in which a focus was placed on the maintenance (and safety) of the UK Strategic Road Network (SRN), rather than its expansion. 

“A significant part of the SRN is now 50 years or more old, and was designed to operate in a more benign climate and carry less traffic. As the asset ages, it will need increased maintenance and renewals to remain in a safe, serviceable condition to meet current and future needs,” the draft proposal states.

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