Councils Risk Losing a Third of Their Road Funding Unless They Prove They Fix Potholes

The pothole that gets filled in one week and reopens the next is one of the most familiar frustrations of driving in Britain. From now on, councils will have to prove they are doing something about it. Under new rules issued by the government on 9 June, every council in England will be required to publish a public report showing exactly how well it repairs its roads, and any council that fails to do so faces losing almost a third of this year’s road maintenance money.

For drivers, the change is aimed squarely at the problem of short-term “patch and dash” repairs that crumble within months. The government wants councils to carry out proper, long-term fixes and full resurfacing instead, a shift it says could save motorists hundreds of pounds a year in pothole-related repair bills.

What the new rules require

The Department for Transport’s new reporting requirements force councils to demonstrate publicly, for the first time, how well they repair their roads and what they are doing to avoid repeat visits to the same stretch of asphalt. Each authority will have to publish a local highways maintenance transparency report, due in September 2026, setting out how many potholes it has filled and how many of its roads are due for resurfacing.

The reports will feed into the red, amber and green ratings the government began publishing earlier this year, which grade councils on whether they follow best practice. Green-rated authorities are those that invest in long-term prevention and full resurfacing rather than simply patching holes. The enforcement is blunt: any council that does not follow the guidance or fails to publish its report on time will have almost a third of this year’s highways maintenance funding held back.

Roads and Buses Minister Simon Lightwood said the measure ends years of frustration for drivers. “For too long motorists have been left incensed by short-term work being prioritised over genuine long-term repairs. Thanks to our new guidance, that changes today,” he said. “For the first time not only will councils need to show just how many potholes they are filling in, but what they are doing to avoid going back to fix the same pothole time and again, something which understandably infuriates drivers.”

Why “patch and dash” costs you money

The logic behind the rules is financial as much as practical. A poorly executed repair that fails within weeks means the same hole is filled twice or three times, wasting public money and leaving drivers exposed to the damage in between. The government puts the average cost of pothole-related damage at around £500, a figure echoed by motoring bodies that track repair claims.

RAC Head of Policy Simon Williams welcomed the focus on lasting repairs. “Aside from potholes themselves, there’s nothing that annoys drivers more than ones that have been poorly repaired and become potholes again in a matter of weeks or months. Bad repairs are a waste of time and money, so it’s positive the government is prioritising long-term fixes over short-term patching and dashing,” he said. He added that potholes “are a serious road safety danger to those on 2 wheels, along with causing expensive damage to vehicles.”

The backing for the new approach is a record £7.3 billion in long-term road funding for local authorities. The government says this longer-term certainty, rather than year-by-year handouts, is what allows councils to plan resurfacing programmes that stop potholes forming in the first place. It follows action in April, when ministers warned that up to £524 million of a separate £1.6 billion highways pot would be withheld from councils that could not prove they were meeting requirements.

The scale of the bill drivers are already paying

The numbers behind the policy explain why it is being introduced. Pothole damage has cost UK drivers a record £1.8 billion over the past 12 months, with around 12.8 million motorists reporting vehicle damage after hitting a pothole. The average repair bill stands at roughly £137 for minor damage, rising to about £590 for anything worse than a puncture on a typical family car. England and Wales are estimated to have more than a million potholes, around six for every mile of council-controlled road.

Drivers are increasingly trying to recover those costs. Compensation claims submitted to local authorities have jumped 91 per cent in three years, climbing from 27,731 in 2021 to 53,015 in 2024, a surge we examined in detail in our report on how pothole compensation claims have soared. The catch is that councils reject up to 90 per cent of them, often by relying on a legal defence that they had a reasonable inspection and repair system in place. Greater transparency over how well each council actually maintains its roads could make that defence harder to sustain.

How to claim for pothole damage

If a pothole damages your car, you can claim against the authority responsible for the road, and the new reporting rules may strengthen your hand. Start by identifying who maintains the road: your local council looks after most streets and minor roads, while National Highways is responsible for motorways and major A-roads. Report the pothole through the council’s online tool or at gov.uk, which also creates a record that the authority was aware of the defect.

Gather evidence at the scene if it is safe to do so. Photograph the pothole with something for scale, note its width and depth, and record the exact location, date and time. Keep all repair invoices and, where possible, a written quote showing the damage was consistent with a pothole strike. Submit the claim in writing to the highway authority, attaching your evidence and receipts. If the claim is rejected on the grounds that the council had an adequate inspection regime, you can ask for its inspection and repair records, and the new transparency reports should make that history easier to obtain. As a last resort, claims can be pursued through the small claims court. Damage like cracked alloys, buckled wheels and ruined tyres can run to several hundred pounds, the kind of unexpected cost that, as we have reported, can leave drivers significantly out of pocket when an insurer gets involved.

What happens next

The first transparency reports are due in September, at which point drivers in England will be able to look up their own council and see how it compares. Red-rated authorities are already receiving additional government support, with a share of £300,000 in expert help to raise their standards. The guidance was developed alongside local authorities and sector bodies, which suggests councils are broadly on board rather than resisting.

For now, the practical advice for drivers is unchanged but worth repeating. Report every pothole you encounter, because a logged report both speeds up repairs and builds the paper trail you need if your car is damaged later. Keep your evidence, know who is responsible for the road, and do not assume a rejected claim is the end of the matter. The roads will not improve overnight, but for the first time councils will have to show their working, and that is something drivers can hold them to.

There is also a wider safety case that drives the policy. Potholes are a particular danger to people on two wheels, and the cost of poor roads is not limited to private motorists. Emergency services and charities that run fleets of vehicles, including some organ transport operations, are forced to spend thousands of pounds a year repairing damage caused by broken road surfaces. Every repeat repair that fails is money that could have gone into preventing the next pothole, which is the cycle the government is now trying to break by tying funding to results rather than activity.

Drivers who want to see where their own council stands can already look up its red, amber or green rating on the government’s local road maintenance map, and the September reports will add far more detail. If your area is rated red or amber, it is worth knowing that the authority is under direct pressure, and financial penalty, to improve, which strengthens the case for pursuing a well-evidenced claim if your vehicle is damaged on a road that has been allowed to deteriorate.

Sources:

• GOV.UK: Tough new guidance for councils on pothole repairs
• RAC Pothole Index: statistics and data
• GOV.UK: Councils face new rules for spending pothole funding