Councillors in Surrey have said they will put more pressure on central government for more highways funding.

In what the council’s leader called “pothole season”, the problems facing the repair of the county’s roads were set out at a meeting of the authority’s cabinet last week.

The meeting heard there had been an increase in the cost of bitumen of nearly 30 per cent over the past year, as previously indicated by the RSTA.

Councillor John O’Reilly, chairman of the communities, environment and highways select committee, pointed to three central government cabinet ministers being local Conservative MPs, including the chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the MP for South West Surrey.

He said he hoped a central government review into highways funding was carried out earlier than next year, adding: “The state of our roads, through no fault of this council, do require not just pothole filling but resurfacing.”

Cllr O’Reilly told the meeting: “I’m sure we’ll put as much of our influence as we possibly can on central government to address these issues of funding for highways, particularly potholes.”

Speaking before the meeting, Cllr Tim Oliver the council’s leader, said despite seeing more traffic than other areas, the county council got the same level of funding from central government.

He said the potholes were a national problem, made worse at this time of year by the freezing weather in what he called “pothole season”, reports the Woking News.

But he added that additional investment from the council had paid off and led to fewer potholes, with 32,000 being filled last year compared to 75,000 the year before.

“We need the government to give us some one-off money for potholes,” he said.