£400m repair bill to fix Britain's pothole-ridden roads

Absolute disgrace our roads are so bad, drivers are treated with no respect at all. We are becoming a third-world country.

impasable roads, extortionite fual prices, crazy train fairs does david camron want evryone to stop travelling?

The pothole budget seems to be based on the unlikely event that each winter is going to be both mild and dry.

This is one motoring issue that really makes my blood boil, even more than road tax and petrol prices. In my part of the country, every winter, large potholes appear as road surfaces literally break up - and I am referring to main 'A roads' here. Aside from the potential consequences of hitting a large hole there is also the issue of loose material from the broken surfaces lying on roads just ready for oncoming cars to kick up into your vehicle either causing bodywork or windscreen damage. Years of under-investment in the roads come to light with substandard 'patch-work' repairs. The council here (Stirling Council) are a joke with seemingly no interest in the road infrastructure they have responsibility for. Roads outside this council area seem better but are still very poor generally. As 'angrybob' says we are becoming a third world country, with a road infrastructure that is nothing short of a disgrace. Incidentally, this is one of the main reasons I would never purchase a brand new car with my own money!

£400 million may not be enough to repair roads in half the boroughs of London. The recent rain-storms have uprooted all the patchwork that was done last year.
The government must see the motorists as more than a cash cow and spend a decent portion of the money it makes from us under various taxes and fuel duties.

These problems are a simple case of forgetting the need to execute planned maintenance. In reality councils have been ignoring the state of the roads for so long in favour of their pet projects. If you don't do regular repairs in any walk of life...your teeth, your house paintwork, your fitness...whatever subject you choose, the final repairs are much greater in requirement when you finally tackle the repairs...Very often they then become emergency repairs and as we know, emergency repairs usually mean that something has failed, broken or become irreparable. Emergency repairs are always more costly and in some cases the cause of fatality...Councils bleating that its the recent bad weather that has caused these problems is so misleading as its been the continued lack of planned maintenance. Pot holes that started in the summer will be much worse by the end of the Winter, However, patched in the summer, they might not even develop any further in the Winter. I would also like to add that wherever the money comes from, central or local government, it still comes from our pockets. The mnotorist pays many billions into the coffers of government every year in the many forms of motorist taxes and it is not being spend on the areas where is being collected...misuse of funds and mismanagement of planned maintenance is the problem that needs to be addressed and NOW!

The Government can find £50billion (yes, BILLION!) to splash out on a new train to get you to Birmingham 30 minutes faster, yet are unable to allocate £400million to fix our "roads" which are starting to resemble a network of African bush trails. No wonder I see so many X5's and Range Rover's on our roads, people actually NEED them to traverse the terrain.

Do the utilities ever contribute to the costs of repairing our pock-marked roads? So many of the pot-holed and damaged areas on my local roads are in the neatly defined trenches and squares obviously quickly and cheaply patched by the uililty companies regular excavations.