England's pothole repairs set to decline despite Labour's ambitious promises

Labour is on course to fail on its promise to fix an additional one million potholes per year with analysis suggesting there could be a decline in road repairs this year.

In its 2024 manifesto pledge, Labour promised to fix 'an additional one million potholes in England in each year of the next parliament'.

However, an investigation by Full Fact has found that the Government is falling short of that vow.

Its review of 149 transparency reports provided by local highway authorities across England showed that around 1.85 million potholes were filled in the fiscal year 2024/25.

Based on Labour's manifesto, this would suggest at least 2.85 million craters would need to be fixed in the financial year 2025/26 - a 54 per cent increase - to make good on its promise.

However, Full Fact estimates that - based on figures provided by 85 councils - the total number of potholes they will fill in 2025/26 will decline by around 2.6 per cent, with the expectation that nationwide repairs will remain 'broadly flat' on the previous year.

The analysis comes in the wake of publication of the latest 'Road conditions in England and Wales' update from the Department for Transport, which showed that the number of A roads in need of urgent repair has risen by 1 per cent in the last 12 months despite increased Government funding.

While councils are not due to publish their transparency reports for the current financial year for another few months, ministers had requested that local authorities produce a rough estimate for how many potholes they would fill this term in their 2025 reports.

Full Fact said only 85 local authorities have done this, though this represents more than half of the total councils in England.

And they have predicted to fill roughly the same amount of potholes in 2025/26 as they did in 2024/25.

In the previous fiscal year, these 85 councils repaired around 835,000 craters.

This year, they've estimated to repair approximately 813,000, which is a year-on-year decline of 2.6 per cent.

South Gloucestershire Council, for example, estimates it will fill around 18 per cent fewer potholes in this financial year, having repaired 12,148 in 2024/25 but projected to fix 10,000 this time around.

North Tyneside Borough Council's report showed it had filled 6,045 potholes in the previous fiscal year and would rectify a similar volume in the following 12 months, with an estimate of 6,000 repairs.

However, others said they would accelerate the number of crater repairs they will carry out.

Birmingham City Council, for example, said it filled in 4,514 potholes in 2024/25 but will increase this quota by 50 per cent this fiscal year with 6,788 repairs projected.

Full Fact said there are several reasons for fluctuations in annual pothole repair figures by council and by region - and it's not based on utilisation of available funding, prioritising maintenance schedules or managing budgets.

For instance, South Gloucestershire Council explained why it had scaled back its projection for repairs, stating: 'The prolonged periods of very wet weather that we have experienced over the last few years has seen a dramatic increase in potholes and subsequent repairs.

'The start of this calendar year [2025] has been a lot drier which has seen around a third of potholes reported compared to that of 12 months ago.'

Nottingham City Council also said it had filled 19 per cent fewer potholes last year than it had in the 2023/24 period because of an increase in the number of permanent highway maintenance repairs and increased planned maintenance.

The report comes just weeks after the government published a new traffic light rating system for all 159 local highways authorities to present their progress in relation to repairing potholes.

This intended to name and shame those failing to fix their roads or tap into the millions of pounds of available funding to rectify the nation's crater-riddled routes.

In the Chancellor's Autumn Budget, Rachel Reeves committed to provide over £2billion annually by 2029/30 for local authorities to 'repair, renew and fix potholes on their roads', which she said was enough to 'fill millions of potholes each year, enabling the government to exceed its commitment to fix an additional one million potholes per year'.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said at the beginning of January: 'We've put our money where our mouth is, increasing the funding for local highway authorities with £7.3billion to fix roads and given them the long-term certainty they have been asking for.

'Now it's over to them to spend the money wisely.'

DfT report shows A-road conditions in England have deteriorated in the last 12 months

On Wednesday, the DfT published its official statistics on road conditions in England and Wales.

It showed that 5 per cent of A-roads managed by local authorities are classified 'red', meaning they 'should be considered for maintenance' and 'should be investigated fully'.

The volume of red road ratings has increased by 1 per cent in the last year, with Derbyshire having the largest proportion (29 per cent) of its major A-roads categorised as being in need of urgent attention.

The number of B and C-roads classified as red has remained relatively consistent year-on-year, though, with the national average being 7 per cent.