PM demands accountability as he urges councils to get on with fixing potholes

Sir Keir Starmer has said there needs to be “accountability” in the system of fixing potholes, and suggested damage caused by them is “irritating”.

It comes as the Prime Minister told councils to prove they are tackling the issue or face losing the cash to fix them.

He said that councils need to “get on with the job” of fixing potholes as he announced an additional £4.8 billion of funding to carry out work on motorways and major A-roads.

Local authorities will start to get their share of £1.6 billion in highway maintenance funding confirmed last year, up £500 million from the previous year, in mid-April.

But from Monday, they will be required to publish annual progress reports or face having funding withheld.

On a visit to a garage in Cambridge on Monday morning, the Prime Minister spoke to two members of the public who have been affected by pothole damage, one of whom told him that budgets for fixing the holes are “the wrong way around”.

Sir Keir responded: “The first thing we need to do is to get a bit of accountability into it, to know which councils are doing what where.

“How many times are they filling in holes so we can get a bit of data on that which we haven’t got.”

He said Monday’s announcement would “incentivise” councils to “get on and do it”.

On the same visit, alongside Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, the Prime Minister was introduced to mechanics and apprentices who work on cars that have been damaged by potholes.

Being shown damage to tyres caused by potholes, he said: “It’s really irritating, if you’re doing the school run or you’re using your car or your van for work.”

Earlier on Monday, Sir Keir had said that potholes are not boring.

Asked by BBC Radio 5 Live if filling the holes in roads was boring, the Prime Minister replied: “You say that, and some people do say, ‘well, it’s just potholes’.

“I can tell you, if you hit a pothole, there will be some people hitting a pothole this morning, and then they are picking up an average £600 bill to their car or their van.

“That isn’t boring, that is really irritating. We’ve got far too many of them, and this is about getting that job done.”

However, the Local Government Association (LGA) has said that the cost of the local road repairs backlog is close to £17 billion, and called on the Government to give financial certainty to councils.

Councillor Adam Hug, the LGA’s transport spokesperson, 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.”

Ms Alexander has said that the Government wants to make sure councils are not “frittering money away on ineffective road repairs”.

She told Times Radio: “We just want to make sure that every pound of taxpayers’ money is well spent, and that councils aren’t frittering money away on ineffective road repairs, but they’re using that money wisely.”

Published: 24/03/2025 by Radio NewsHub