North west roads England’s worst

Cottage Lane in Lancashire is the most complained road in England.

Car Parts 4 Less gathered council data through a series of Freedom of Information requests to find the most complained about roads across England and created an online tool to help drivers avoid the worst routes.

Cottage Lane had 271 complaints, while 188 motorists complained about Liverpool Road in Salford. Chester Road (162), Topsham Road in Exeter (136) and Bingley Relief Road in Bradford (115) completed the top five.

The data shows the north west is bearing the brunt of England’s terrible tarmac, with the top three worst roads found in Lancashire, Salford and Cheshire.

Potholes cost UK drivers almost £684m in car repairs annually, with one pothole compensation claim made every 17 minutes. English roads are so infamously bumpy that Japanese car manufacturer Honda had to build a four-mile testing track that mimicked British roads to see if its cars were hardy enough to survive our tarmac.

Ben Egleton from UK Carline regularly travels along Cottage Lane. He said, ‘I always find this to be a troublesome start and end to my daily commute. The potholes have been dreadful. I’ve personally suffered a puncture on my drive home this year and the two cars following suffered the same fate within 20 minutes.

‘We were able to claim against the local council who until then were repeatedly refilling the patchwork of potholes. Thankfully they’ve recently resurfaced Cottage Lane and so it’s now a much safer road to use.’