£10bn bill to repair Britain's potholes and crumbling roads!

They are the bone-jangling, sump-scraping, ankle-twisting scourge of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. Even The Beatles demonised them in song. And they’ve got much worse. One of the coldest winters in recent memory has resulted in a 50 per cent deterioration in the state of the nation’s roads and a dramatic rise in the number of potholes. The taxpayer faces a repair bill costing hundreds of millions of pounds for the past year alone – adding to £10bn-worth of outstanding pothole repairs. With a month of winter remaining and the full extent of the damage still being assessed, it is estimated that the total number of craters in Britain’s 246,000 miles of secondary routes (those that aren’t motorways or A-roads) has risen to 1.6 million – an increase of 700,000 in two years. The Local Government Association, which represents local authorities in England and Wales, has written to the Department of Transport seeking £100m of emergency funds to carry out the most urgent repairs. North Yorkshire County Council proposes a 2.94 per cent rise in council tax to help fix the problem. With one pothole to be found every 120 yards, it will take an estimated 15 years to remedy the problem. David Weeks, director of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), claims that Britain’s network is in danger of sinking to “Third World” levels. The short cold snap of 2009 resulted in a 30 per cent increase in the number of potholes, costing £47m in compensation claims for injury and damage. This year’s sustained freeze is expected to produce even more alarming figures. “Just go and look at any road and you will see,” said Mr Weeks. “For too long the network in Britain has been at the bottom of the political agenda. Local authorities have concentrated on siphoning off money from the roads budget to pay for vote-winning services such as education. But it is like buying new furniture for your house before you fix the leaking roof.” More
(AD Suggests ~ The roads are in such a bad way, a repair of a pothole is just a quick fix. There needs to be an investment on the roads so they are resurfaced properly, and less likely to crumble and have potholes in colder times.)