Potholes in the UK cost the economy over £14 billion a year, new research has found.
More than one million potholes in the UK dent the economy by around £14.4 billion per year, as they cause accidents, delay journeys, increase emissions and require being repaired, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said.
Douglas McWilliams, the deputy chairman of the CEBR, claimed UK road quality was nearing that of developing countries such as India, largely because of reduced spending on maintenance.
McWilliams said: “Having completed the most recent ‘Peking to Paris’ car rally, my take is that our roads are now worse for potholes than anywhere on that rally apart from the far west of China and Mongolia … and notably worse than in both Russia and Kazakhstan, let alone western Europe.”
Last year, the budget for pothole repairs was increased by £200 million to £700 million per year, but the CEBR noted that spending of said funds is at the discretion of the Department of Transport and therefore may not be fully spent.
To repair all existing potholes in the UK would cost the economy around £16.3 billion, the Local Authority Road Maintenance and Repair Survey revealed.
“Every road in the country could be rebuilt for the cost of the economic damage in under 14 months from potholes. It looks like a no-brainer. But no-brainer cost-benefit analysis rarely guides policy decisions in government,” McWilliams added.
“Anecdotal evidence suggests that part of the problem seems to be the use of cheap fillers by private contractors to fill potholes, which get ripped out the first time a bus or a heavy lorry drives over it.
“The private contractors can then get paid a second time to fill the pothole their own filler has created.”