It’s no secret that our roads aren’t in the best condition – Potholes are being reported hourly, and millions are being paid out for damaged cars every year due to the lack of road repair. We’ve had a look at how to prevent them, but what about all the existing potholes?
As of last year, there were 12,000 miles of potholes waiting to be repaired, that’s halfway around the world! And that number is thought to have significantly grown since then, even though over 2,000,000 potholes were filled throughout 2015. Town Hall Chiefs reported this as a ‘roads crisis’ and explained that it should be addressed as a national priority with guaranteed Government funding.
The aforementioned 2,000,000 potholes cost roughly £118.4m to fill, so that leads to our question:
How much would all of England’s road repair cost?
It is estimated that it would cost England a budget of a massive £11.8 billion to get all of England’s roads back to working condition. On top of this, it would take 14 years to complete.
Sky News Reported Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s transport spokesman, saying: “It is becoming increasingly urgent to address the roads crisis. Our roads are deteriorating fast and it would take almost £12billion, and it could be nearly 2030 before we could bring them up to scratch and clear the current roads repair backlog”
“Motorists pay billions to the Treasury each year in fuel duty when they fill up their car at the pumps only to then have to drive on roads that are decaying after decades of underfunding. They deserve roads fit for the 21st century.”
Potholes are one of Britain’s most common and dangerous road problems, and unless action is taken to increase road repair, the issue will keep on growing. Click here to find out how you can help prevent them.
