Shropshire roads ‘plagued’ with potholes taking months to fix

Data obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Freedom of Information requests has revealed that some councils in England are taking over a month on average to fix potholes once they have been reported, with one individual pothole in Shropshire taking 285 days to fix last year.

The Liberal Democrats have criticised the Government for creating a “pothole postcode lottery” by cutting local authority’s highways maintenance budgets by £500 million (28%) since 2020-21 and announcing only a £200 million top-up to the national ‘Potholes Fund’ in the Budget last month.

Shropshire Councillor Alex Wagner is backing calls on the government to restore the full road maintenance budget in addition to the £200 million extra, in order to ‘get the basics right’ and sort roads out across Shropshire.

Shropshire Councillor Alex Wagner said: "The single most common complaint I hear on the doorstep across the county is with the state of the roads. Too many of our highways are crumbling, and it’s no wonder given the slashed funding for maintenance we’ve seen these last few years under the Conservatives.

Sorting out our roads and getting the basics right should be a top priority at Shirehall. This said, it’s on the government to get their act together too, which means an end to cuts to local authority budgets.

There also needs to be work done to investigate the quality of road repairs done by private contractors. Too often we hear of a pothole being repaired only to be a problem again months or even weeks later. It’s not good enough and needs urgent attention if we want to get on top of the problem across the county.”

Full pothole FOI data available here. 

Longest waits to fix potholes (2021/22)

Highways maintenance funding for England in real terms (2023-24 prices):

2020-21 funding figures available here. Converted to 2023-24 prices using HM Treasury’s latest GDP deflators. 3-year funding figures for 2022-25 available here. Additional pothole funding for 2023-24 available here.