The Department for Transport (DfT) has allocated £500 million to UK local authorities for essential road maintenance - enough to fill in 10 million potholes.
The investment comes from the £2.5 billion Potholes Fund, which will provide £500m annually from until 2024/2025, as detailed in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s 2020 budget in March last year.
According to the DfT, the average pothole costs around £50 to fill in. This dedicated fund, it said, will go towards “making thousands of local roads both safer and easier to drive and cycle on”.
In total, the DfT has allocated more than £1.1 billion to national road maintenance over the course of 2021/2022.
Transport minister Baroness Vere said: “We know potholes are more than just a nuisance: they can be dangerous to drivers and cyclists alike and cause damage to thousands of vehicles every year.
“The funding allocated today will help councils ensure roads in their area are kept up to standard and that the potholes that blight road users can be dealt with promptly.”
The government has recently stepped up its financial support package for UK road infrastructure, pledging £27bn - the largest investment yet - to road maintenance, operations and renewal as part of the Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2).
By 2050, there are planned to be 20 new road connections for UK ports and airports, more than 100 new motorway junctions and 4000 miles of new road.
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