£18.6 Billion in the Ground: Britain’s Pothole Crisis Is a National Disgrace and Here Is How to Claim

The state of Britain’s roads has been described as a “national disgrace” by the industry body responsible for the most comprehensive annual survey of local road conditions, and the numbers behind that verdict are sobering. Councils in England and Wales face a backlog of repairs totalling £18.62 billion just to bring local roads up to an acceptable standard, according to the 2026 ALARM survey published by the Asphalt Industry Alliance. The AA was called out to 137,000 pothole-related breakdowns in just January and February 2026, a figure 25,000 higher than the same two months in 2025. Three in ten drivers say their vehicles have suffered pothole damage in the past year. The average repair bill when it happens is £590.

How Bad Is It Really

David Giles, Chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, put the ALARM survey’s findings in plain terms: “I think all road users would agree that the condition of our local roads has become a national disgrace. The impact of frequent adverse weather events on a consistently underfunded, and increasingly fragile, network are coming home to roost.”

The 2026 ALARM survey, now in its 31st year and completed by 79 per cent of local authorities, found that only 51 per cent of local roads are in good structural condition, meaning they have 15 or more years of structural life remaining. Almost one in six local roads, representing more than 32,500 miles of tarmac, have less than five years of life left. The entire network would take 12 years to repair if work began immediately with sufficient funding, which it has not.

Local authorities filled 1.9 million potholes over the past year at a total cost of £149.3 million, which works out at more than 5,200 individual repairs every single day. But the backlog keeps growing because roads are being resurfaced on average only once every 97 years. Patching individual potholes is far cheaper in the short term than resurfacing an entire road, but it is also far less effective: a patched pothole in a structurally weak road surface often reappears within months.

The RAC has reported that pothole mentions by its members during breakdown callouts surged in early 2026. In February alone, 6,290 drivers specifically identified potholes as the cause of their breakdown, compared to just 1,842 in February 2025. That is a more than threefold increase in a single year. The RAC has attended 20 per cent more punctures in 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, and pothole damage is now the number one motoring concern cited by UK drivers, with 47 per cent naming it as their top issue ahead of fuel prices, insurance costs or congestion.

What Pothole Damage Actually Costs

When a pothole damages a car, the consequences range from a slow puncture to serious mechanical failure. Tyres are the most common casualty: sidewall bulges, punctures and blowouts can happen from a single strike at speed. Alloy wheels can buckle or crack, particularly on lower-profile tyres where there is less cushioning between the rim and the road. Suspension components, including shock absorbers and springs, can be damaged in ways that do not show up immediately but affect handling and accelerate tyre wear. A hard pothole strike can also knock wheels out of alignment, causing the car to pull to one side and wearing tyres unevenly.

The average cost of a pothole repair for a typical family car is around £590, but bills can climb considerably higher when alloy replacement, suspension work and wheel alignment are all required at the same time. According to industry estimates, around a third of all recorded vehicle damage in the UK is attributable to poor road surfaces.

How to Claim Compensation for Pothole Damage

If a pothole damages your car, you may be entitled to claim compensation from the authority responsible for maintaining that road. Around 53,015 pothole compensation claims were submitted to UK councils in 2024, up 91 per cent since 2021. However, only 26 per cent of those claims were paid out, meaning councils rejected nearly 40,000 requests. That rejection rate does not mean claims are not worth making. It means you need to make your claim correctly, with the right evidence, at the right time.

First, establish who is responsible for the road where the damage occurred. On most local roads in England and Wales, the relevant authority is your county, city or borough council. Motorways and major A-roads are managed by National Highways in England, Transport Scotland, or Traffic Wales. The GOV.UK postcode checker allows you to identify the right council for any given road.

Collect evidence as soon as possible after the incident. Photograph the pothole from multiple angles, including a reference object such as a ruler or a coin to indicate scale. Note the precise location using the road name, nearest landmark, or a GPS coordinate or what3words reference. Take photographs of any damage to your vehicle on the same day. If you have a dashcam, secure the footage immediately, since it can significantly strengthen a claim.

Report the pothole to the relevant authority using the GOV.UK reporting tool or the council’s own website. This creates an official record and is important for two reasons: it pressures the council to repair the road, protecting other drivers, and it establishes a paper trail that can support your claim. An authority that was unaware of a pothole before you hit it has a stronger legal defence than one that had been notified and failed to act within its own repair timescales.

Get two or three written repair quotes for the damage to your vehicle, or keep all invoices and receipts if you have already had the work done. Then submit a formal claim to the council, including all photographs, repair documentation and the details of the incident. Many councils now have online claims forms. Keep copies of everything you send and note the date of submission.

The Legal Defence Councils Use and How to Beat It

Councils have a legal defence under Section 58 of the Highways Act 1980. If a council can demonstrate that it took reasonable steps to maintain the road, including carrying out regular inspections and repairing known defects within its published timescales, it may not be liable even if your car was damaged. This means your chances of a successful claim are significantly better when the pothole had already been reported to the council before you hit it and the council had not repaired it within its own stated response time.

Success rates for pothole claims vary widely. Some councils pay out on as few as two per cent of claims; others pay on as many as 68 per cent. Derbyshire saw one of the sharpest rises in claims anywhere in Britain, with the number of claims jumping from 224 in 2021 to 3,307 in 2024, an increase of nearly 1,400 per cent. The council paid out an estimated £605,235 in compensation during 2024 alone.

If your claim is rejected, do not simply accept the outcome. You can request to see the council’s road inspection records to check whether the pothole was known about and whether the repair response fell within the published timescale. If you believe the claim was wrongly rejected, you can escalate through the small claims court for amounts up to £10,000, which does not require legal representation. For larger sums, legal advice is recommended.

What the Government Is Doing and What Comes Next

The government has pledged £7.3 billion over four years from 2026 to 2030 to tackle local road conditions in England, alongside £1.6 billion for the current financial year, which is nearly 50 per cent more than was spent in the previous year. It has also committed to repairing an additional one million potholes per year across England. The Asphalt Industry Alliance has urged the government to front-load that spending, directing more funding into the early years rather than gradually ramping up towards 2030. Spending more now would allow councils to shift from reactive patching to preventative resurfacing, which costs more upfront but is dramatically cheaper over time.

Even with the increased funding, the industry’s own assessment is that the £18.62 billion backlog will take 12 years to clear and that drivers will not notice a significant improvement on most roads for some time. In the meantime, the practical advice is clear: slow down on visibly damaged roads, treat standing water as a potential pothole concealment, check your tyres regularly, report every pothole you encounter using the GOV.UK tool, and know your rights if damage does occur.

Sources:

• PetrolPrices.co.uk: UK Pothole Crisis and how to claim
• Highways News: ALARM Survey 2026
• GOV.UK: Claim for damage to your vehicle
• Fleet World: Pothole repair backlog swells to record £18.6bn