A campaigner has urged the Government to “wake up” to the prospect of entirely upgrading the UK’s “crater-infested roads” in preference to spending almost £15bn on pothole repairs.
According to world-renowned economist Douglas McWilliams, founder of the Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr), in an updated Cebr report for FairFuelUK, the cost of completely rebuilding English roads and eradicating all current potholes is estimated at £16.3bn, a mere £1.6bn extra in only repairing the existing potholes.
The estimated annual cost in 2023 to repair all potholes was £14.4bn despite an increase in potholes mended, the repair price in 2024 has still risen to £14.7bn. Some 1.3bn hours are added to travel time because potholes cost the economy a massive £13.1bn. This figure does not include time lost from added congestion and delayed freight.
This means that every road in England could be rebuilt for the cost of the economic damage from roughly 13 months of potholes. The annual cost of damage to vehicles from potholes in 2024 was £1.48bn.
Howard Cox, Founder of FairFuelUK, said: “Relying on short-term ‘rush, bodge it and scarper’ reparations is politically blinkered and risks inhibiting economic growth. We must rebuild our roads to last 30 years instead of using the existing short-term filling-up of potholes strategy. Properly, newly surfaced roads will boost the economy, create jobs, and prevent road casualties. It’s a no-brainer and will be the cheapest option in the long term.”
Douglas McWilliams, Cebr founder, said: “Having personally completed the ‘Peking to Paris’ car rally, my take is that our UK roads are now considerably more pothole-infested than anywhere in the world, apart from the dirt tracks in the far West of China and Mongolia where we had to drive across the Gobi desert. We must rebuild our roads for the sake of our economy and road safety.”
The Cebr Report can be viewed at https://fairfueluk.com/potholes.
