Pothole breakdowns rising despite investment
Pothole breakdowns were up almost 10% in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2024.
According to the RAC, its patrols attended 6,575 pothole-related breakdowns from April to June, which represents an increase of nine per cent on the second quarter of 2024.
The data also revealed that RAC patrols went out to 24,763 pothole breakdowns in the 12 months up to 30 June 2025. This equates to 68 a day and 500 more than the 12 months up to the end of March this year.
The most common pothole-related damage from April to June was broken suspensions, with 4,779 instances recorded.
Breakdown volumes
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “Although English councils received a record amount of funding for roads at the start of the new financial year in April, it’s too early to notice the benefit of increased maintenance programmes.
“We can clearly see the cold winter weather at the start of the year has left its mark and caused an unseasonable high in breakdown volumes during a quarter when we’d typically expect a reprieve.
“With second-quarter RAC call-outs 9% higher than the same period last year, we hope English councils have been putting their allocated funding pots to good work in the summer surface dressing season which runs from April to September. We hope drivers will soon start to see the results of both the preventative maintenance and resurfacing works they have done.”
Long-term plan
He continued: “We’re urging all highways authorities to think ‘prevention over patching’ when it comes to their maintenance work. After filling the most severe potholes as permanently as possible, preventative treatments like surface dressing are by far the most effective because they stop potholes appearing in future.
“Now councils have long-term certainty of funding, they can plan surfacing dressing works, along with resurfacing roads that are beyond repair.”
