In the manifesto which presaged the landslide election of this Labour Government, there was a very specific pledge. It wasn’t an abstract promise about restoring hope, kickstarting the economy or breaking down the barriers to opportunity. No, it was there on page 33 of the manifesto as a direct, clear and accountable commitment: “We will fix an additional one million potholes across England in each year of the next parliament.”
While appearing to be a very particular and precise, even noble, undertaking, it is very difficult to evaluate progress, given the lack of truly reliable data on potholes. But anyone who has driven a motor car on the 262,300 miles of roads in the UK recently will know one fact for certain: the proliferation of tyre-shredding, suspension-damaging fractures in our road network is a national disgrace, and it’s getting worse not better.
I live in rural Oxfordshire, where every car journey is undertaken at your own peril. And I’m not just talking about B roads, some of which have a profile like the surface of the Moon, and would disgrace an undeveloped country, never mind the world’s sixth-richest economy. Many of the county’s main arterial routes also have consequential holes in them that pose a real danger, not just to your tyres but to road safety. The RAC believes that this same “plague” (the word they use) blights most counties of the UK.
The RAC monitors the state of the nation’s roads, and its own Pothole Index, published earlier this year, estimated that there are now six potholes per mile of council-controlled roads, and a total of more than one million nationwide (this is a highly conservative estimate). It reported that there had been a 25 per cent rise in its attendance at pothole-related incidents in the past year. Meanwhile, new holes seem to appear each day, the problem exacerbated by the recent heavy rainfall, which washes away previous road repairs. The AA reports that it attended 68,000 pothole-related vehicle breakdowns this January alone.
The Government cannot be blamed for the weather, but anecdotal evidence would suggest that it is miles behind on its target. The reasons for the lack of accuracy in the data are both the vagueness around the definition of a pothole and the difficulties in getting each local council to deliver precise, timely reports. However Full Fact, the independent organisation which checks government claims, believes the manifesto commitment “appears off track”.
“Estimates from 85 councils [out of a total of 154] suggest the total number of potholes they will fill in 2025/26 will be broadly flat,” reports Full Fact, “raising doubts about how achievable Labour’s pledge is, in the short term at least.”
But we don’t need the stats. We, the nation’s motorists – a group which transcends all areas, demographics, and political affiliations, from white-van man to Mercedes driver, from Mondeo man to classic-car enthusiast – have day-to-day experience of the situation on the ground, so to speak. And it is dire. Really dire.
I asked Jeremy Clarkson for his observation on potholes. “I don’t have a one-liner,” he texted back, “but I do have two flat tyres.” And without coming over all Clarksonian about it, I don’t think it’s fanciful to suggest that the scourge of potholes is symbolic of the malaise of modern Britain, a country where we have to endure shoddiness in the delivery of basic public services – trains that don’t run on time, rivers that are full of sewage, GPs who can’t see you for three weeks.
Yes, you can apply to your local council for a refund if your tyre is blown out by a pothole. But most of these claims are rejected if the council can say there is a “reasonable system of inspection and maintenance” in place. In any case, this system puts the onus on the individual to seek reparation rather than the governing body to do something about the situation in the first place. Likewise, the nation’s community of drivers using the Waze app provides the only accurate early warning system, reporting potholes in real time.
There are so many reasons to feel depressed about the state of the world at the moment, and bigger things to worry about than getting from A to B unscathed. Nevertheless, the humble pothole does represent something significant: a manifest failure of the system, a pledge unfulfilled, a breach in the social contract, something that you feel in your spine, literally and metaphorically, every time you undertake a car journey. For its own sake, as well as ours, it’s time the Government got out the shovels and made good our roads, and on its commitment to the British people.
