Transport Secretary suffers pothole misery
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander had to have her Mini Cooper recovered after driving into a pothole in Oxfordshire.
It’s been reported the damage left her with a repair bill of £150.
Councils in England and Wales paid out £10.2m in pothole claims between 2022 and 2024, with Oxfordshire one of the top 10 counties for claims payouts.
The government had dedicated £1.6bn to pothole repairs in the 2026/27 financial year, but councils could lose about a third of their funding if they fail to provide evidence of improvement.
Woeful
David Giles, chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), said: “Heidi Alexander’s experience is unfortunately one that is shared by many and highlights, yet again, the woeful condition of our local roads. Thankfully it was only the Transport Secretary’s car that was damaged. Had she been on two wheels, the consequences could have been far more serious.
“Just last month we published the findings of our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report which highlighted the scale of the problem, with the backlog of repairs in England and Wales now reported to stand at a whopping £18.62bn.
“However, while potholes may be a curse for road users up and down the country, they are not inevitable: they are the symptom of a network that has been underfunded for decades and has become increasingly fragile as a result.
“The government has made a welcome step forward in addressing the situation with its commitment to increase funding to 2030 and its new measures to ensure it is spent on our local roads and not diverted elsewhere.”
No silver bullet
Giles continued: “But this is not the silver bullet that will help local authority highway engineers clear the backlog of repairs any time soon and it will be some time before the public notices the impact.
“What we need now is for the government’s to fully deliver the additional funding pledged in the years to 2030. This should help support a shift away from the seemingly endless cycle of pothole patch and repair and allow local authority highway teams to sooner deliver the necessary resurfacing and proactive programmes that prevent potholes forming in the first place.”
