No matter where you reside in the UK, you’ve most likely witnessed the abundance of potholes springing up left, right and centre if you drive. You’d be wrong if you thought it was just a problem local to your neck of the woods.
I counted twelve of them only yesterday during a quick ten-minute trip to the local supermarket. Not the shallow kind, which barely registers as you traverse them, but severe, several-inch deep craters which would fluster even the most robust suspension systems.
Others are awakening to this plight, too. A new analysis from Round Our Way, published on January 15 on National Potholes Day, suggests 2023 saw the number of potholes on UK roads increase by more than 60% and has reached record levels.
Round Our Way sent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to every local authority responsible for local roads in Britain, with 62.5% (130 councils) providing data and 55.3% (115 councils) providing data for the last five years (2018-2023).
The number of potholes across the country is projected to be over 1 million, representing a 62.3% increase in comparable figures for 2022 when 743,923 potholes were estimated to have been recorded across all council areas in England, Scotland and Wales.
From the data obtained from the councils, we can see how our roads have declined over the past five years. In England, 2.7 million potholes have been recorded by councils in England since 2018, with Surrey County Council recording the greatest number of potholes during 2023 with more than 68,000, followed by Northumberland County Council with more than 38,000 and Oxfordshire County Council with more than 32,000. Round Our Way projections show a 63.44% growth in the number of potholes across England, rising from 625,703 in 2022 to 1,022,673 in 2023.
In Wales, 74,000 potholes have been recorded by Welsh councils since 2018, with Carmarthenshire recording the highest number in 2023 with more than 5,000, followed by Cardiff with almost 4,000. Round Our Way projections show an 83.18% growth in the number of potholes across Wales, rising from 28,432 in 2022 to 52,083 in 2023.
In Scotland, almost 350,000 potholes have been recorded by Scottish authorities since 2018, with Glasgow City Council recording the greatest number in 2023 with almost 18,000, followed by Dumfries and Galloway with almost 16,000. Round Our Way projections show a 47.73% growth in the number of potholes across Scotland, rising from 89,787 in 2022 to 132,642 in 2023.
Predictably, so-called “experts” blame climate change as the primary culprit. Dr Benyi Cao, Royal Academy of Engineering research fellow and lecturer in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Surrey, said: “Potholes are primarily formed by a combination of three elements: water, traffic, and freeze-thaw cycles. Climate change is leading to more extreme temperatures, both in summer and winter, which can increase the number of freeze-thaw cycles in winter and high temperatures which can soften the pavement, making it more susceptible to damage in the summer”.
While it’s true that freeze-thaw cycles play a significant role in forming potholes, Dr Cao’s argument is quite disingenuous. Extreme weather has always existed in the UK, and yet, never have our roads been so sorry. If we must go down the weather route, here’s some rationale: maybe the government’s obsession with housing developments and concreting over natural drainage is why there’s more water on the roads, not climate change.
On top of that, the roads aren’t being repaired. Roadworks are plentiful; you can barely drive for five minutes before encountering the dreaded temporary traffic lights. However, it isn’t the safety of the road surface that has their attention; it’s usually cycle lanes or the installation of yet more intrusive surveillance cameras. Clearly, funding is being taken away from essential road repair work in favour of pointless policies that nobody asked for. It is ironic for such a health and safety-oriented state.
More than two thousand years ago, the Romans realised that a strong road network was essential to a dynamic civilisation. It seems that our “progressive” government has forgotten this lesson.
