Can we talk about potholes please? Why are there so many?

[Irememberwhenitwasallfieldsroundhere]

Motorways seem to be reasonably well maintained but I recently drove from London to Oxford and the state of the roads is a disgrace.

Does anyone know why? Are councils or the highways agency not responsible for repairing the roads?

It's really shocking - my Waze tells me about a pothole every 10 minutes it seems.

Also, is there anything anyone can do about it? If enough people complain will councils fix the roads?

They’re everywhere. I’ve driven around a lot of Lancashire recently and all horrendous. Some motorways aren’t great. Recently went to the midlands and roads there also terrible. I have a small sporty low cow car with thin alloy wheels- a nightmare for me!

Perhaps people would be more sympathetic if they didn't watch councils come out, fill a couple of potholes, leave the other 4 because they 'don't meet criteria yet' only to return two weeks later to fill two that now meet criteria, then return two weeks later again to fill the last two, to return two weeks later again to redo the first two because it was such a shit job they're already back. It's not exactly an efficient use of resources.

The only way to fix potholes is to relay the road and repair the substrate.

Anyone seen the cross section of a Roman road ? The ones that weathered well over 1,000 years.

Thats the issue. Where i live my road was resurfaced and then had to be done again as it started to come up not long after.

They put speed humps in that had to be redone as they were too high..so guessing they spent more money trying to fix the mistakes.

Not like even small little holes some are huge! You see cars having to drive around them or risk tyre damage.

Years ago when I was a trainee I acted for an old lady in social housing whose car had been damaged by a pothole. She only had third party insurance and her car was a write off. The council tried to fob her off and she couldn’t afford a replacement car. They were liable and eventually paid for the damage.
If a cyclist is injured they can be liable. Car insurance is mandatory but not fully comprehensive. If roads are not maintained to the point of negligence, people and insurers are going to start suing. Just like they are now suing unis for failure during Covid, and just like they are suing the NHS for negligence during births. Public services are not free! We pay for them, at least most of us do, and we pay a lot for them. I will be suing anyone who delivers a substandard service, as is my legal right to do and others will do it as well.

And whatever does or doesn't happen with HS2, that was a classic case (of many) of successive governments wanting to run before they walk.

Spending billions on a shiny new railway whilst summarily ignoring the existing roads that are woefully unfit for purpose is the equivalent of decorating your house in fancy posh new wallpaper whilst blissfully ignoring the fact that it has damp, mould and subsidence that are rather more pressing to address.

'Nice to haves' should never be prioritised over essential, urgent needs.

So yes, potholes are annoying and yes I wish someone would do something about them but what world do people live in that they need this explained to them?

I think it's simply that, if you pay for a service and don't get it, you're entitled to complain. If the council/business that has taken your money for a job then tells you that it can't do it - but that they'll keep your money anyway - that's when a root and branches investigation is needed. In the case of a company, administrators would be called in and it would probably be wound up. People in Birmingham are currently demanded to pay their full council tax - with the threat of court if they don't - even though one of the key essential services for which they pay it is simply not being delivered by the council that just shrugs its shoulders.

If councils are run as monopolies, with no possible alternative, failure can't be tolerated. Yes, the central governments are to blame as well; but we can either have authorities that are paid to provide services and then provide them, or otherwise we make our own arrangements and don't pay them.

If councils are so under the cosh, they should take it to the people and be open about their income and their expenditure. Just like a company in administration has to be transparent about everything with the administrators. If they all did it and exposed the massive underfunding, it would likely cause a revolution and mass anger and demands on the government to explain... but they won't ever do this, as the councils rely on allying themselves with the central parties so as to ride on their coat-tails and get elected in the first place by the majority who automatically tick 'Labour' or 'Conservative' whenever they're asked. It's remarkably convenient to be able to get voted in by claiming to be a 'Labour' council - but then blame all of your failures and incompetence on the Labour government that you're supposedly a part of (and the same when it's the Tories).

How do you propose people should react when they pay for essential services and they just don't get them - with no interest or accountability on behalf of those who have been paid to provide them?

But they are open and transparent about the funding crisis and it hasn’t caused a revolution and mass anger.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/15/english-councils-to-remain-poorer-than-2010-despite-funding-boost-says-report?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Council finances are very opaque though - I accept that funding is tight & have sympathy for that, but then my council also seems to have funding for various things that doesn’t really make sense if they are short of money. I take an interest in local politics & follow the local news & find I don’t have the information to make sense of it.

Transport is a really good example of this - over the last decade my council has consulted on various road projects that haven’t been built. That doesn’t make sense - why consult on stuff you aren’t going to do? Possibly there’s an explanation re funding streams, but this isn’t being explained to residents. There also seems to be a lack of knowledge re councillors re transport - every time there’s a road safety measure proposed the same tropes come round that are clearly wrong if you have taken the time to find out about transport, but with a few exceptions neither my Council nor the councillors are taking the time to explain basic road traffic research to residents so the same wrong objections are aired time & time again & lead to lots of objections to what the council is trying to do. Basic information such as explaining government guidance, the air pollution situation, local collision statistics are completely missing from consultation drop-ins yet they are vital for residents to make an informed response to proposals.

Then, there’s a lack of debate at elections as many candidates are “paper” candidates so have no interest in canvassing or debating as they are not expecting to win.

There’s also a lack of critical reporting on local government- too often press releases are just quoted without any questioning. Again, transport is a good example here as any road widening scheme is quoted as relieving congestion when all the research on induced demand suggests that this won’t happen & often even on the quoted stats the “relief” is only a few minutes so is unlikely to be noticed by anyone travelling that route.

The North does desperately need a better railway though - if people want to cut transport budgets for potholes, National Highways road expansion projects would be a much better target.

I think it's simply that, if you pay for a service and don't get it, you're entitled to complain.

Living in Birmingham, take if from me, that is all you are entitled to.

It’s also to do with freezing temperatures. The constant freezing and melting and re freezing destroys the surface.

But equally you can’t pay pennies in council tax and expect services worth pounds in return.

Councils are spending £££££££ on special school placements and SEN taxis. If you want to live in a country where these services are abundant and a high % of children use them, then either pay a lot more council tax, or expect other areas to be run on a shoestring.

But equally you can’t pay pennies in council tax and expect services worth pounds in return.

Apparently you can. That nice Mr. Farage said so.

Councils need to get their priorities in order. Emptying the bins and filling in potholes should take priority over all the woke stuff. Not to mention all the gold-plated pensions they have. Councils are so inefficient and wasteful it's untrue, if they were run like efficient private sector companies, council tax could be slashed 90% and services (ie, the ones people actually notice and approve of) improved masssively.

That is nonsense. SEND was privatised and now run for profit via private equity and private Taxis having a field day primarily. That’s inefficiency at its worst. If state schools were offered fair rates for SEND from the get go none of this would have happened. We now have an absurd situation where the council forks out 100k per year for one child but nothing extra for another child with similar need but lacking the same paperwork. It’s completely absurd.

So true, council budgets are becoming unmanageable, such a massive percentage of their income is being spent on social care for older vulnerable adults and children with special needs, that it’s no longer sustainable. Problem is everyone wants better services but they also want lower council tax.

SE London is awful, you have to keep an extra careful eye out/swerve to avoid as some are so wide & large and would definitely damage the car wheels!

Exactly, councils need to sort all the basics first. Like refuse collection and potholes. And then what is left has to be shared fairly across all kids with eg SEND, not first come first served based on having paperwork.

Starmer was pretty sure he wouldn’t have to raise council tax. Although dropped that shortly before which was timely given how much it’s gone up.

They can’t. There is a legal obligation on councils to fulfil EHCPs and provide transport. They don’t get to say ‘you can have what’s left after we’ve served the public as a whole’. The problem is those legal obligations were created when the numbers were much smaller.

The problem is if you disagree that there should be no limit on SEN spending, you get called all the names under the sun as everyone assumes what you mean is ‘I don’t want a penny of my tax going towards SEN children’.

When, obviously, it doesn’t. All it means is there has to be sensible spending limits like with anything else, and we’ve exceeded them.

Laws can be unmade.

Why is it always the send children that need support/funding cutting though? No one suggest cutting care for the adults. And actually, investing in the children, if done properly (which it isn't) would mean they cost less as adults both in benefits and adult social care costs.

Change the laws. Prioritise potholes and bins and services that serve the majority of council tax payers.