The Government has announced plans to crackdown on councils that fail to fix potholes.
It comes as the Transport Secretary said she believes motorists can spend an average of around £600 to cover the cost of pothole-related vehicle repairs.
RAC analysis of local authority compensation claims shows in the limited instances councils do issue payouts, the amount falls well below the average cost of repair work for a typical family car.
The Prime Minister has said there needs do be “accountability” in the system of fixing potholes.
While speaking to two members of the public who have been affected by pothole damage in Cambridge, Sir Keir Starmer was told that budgets for fixing the holes are “the wrong way around”.
Starmer responded: “The first thing we need to do is to get a bit of accountability in to it to know which councils are doing what where.
“How many times are they filling in holes so we can get a bit of data on that which we haven’t got.”
He said Monday’s announcement would “incentivise” councils to “get on and do it”.
Under new plans, councils will be required to prove their progress or face losing their share of the £500m roads pot, which ministers say is enough to fill the equivalent of seven million potholes a year.
In addition to the pothole repair funds, local authorities in England will start to receive their share of the government’s record £1.6bn highway maintenance funding from mid-April.
To get the full amount, all English councils must publish annual progress reports and prove public confidence in their work. Local authorities that fail to meet these strict conditions will see 25 per cent of the uplift (£125m in total) withheld.
Councils will have to detail how much they spend and how many potholes they have filled in reports published on their websites by 30 June.
The most recent RAC data on vehicle damage claims submitted to local authorities shows of the 18 that responded, Surrey topped the list for the highest number of claims made per mile of road with 3,418 in 2023, up from 734 in 2022.
Surrey received the equivalent of one pothole claim for every single mile of its 3,410-mile road network, while Hampshire, Essex and Hertfordshire all received a pothole claim for every two miles of their respective 5,641, 5,188 and 3,110 miles of roads. Hampshire had 2,654 vehicle damage claims made, Essex had 2,560 and Hertfordshire received 1,914 in 2023.
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Kent and Lincolnshire had one claim for every three miles of their 5,822 and 5,559-mile networks, with a total of 1,884 and 1,771 compensation claims made respectively. Devon received 1,697 claims and Gloucestershire 829.
The number of pothole-related breakdowns in 2024 (22,703,) was down in comparison to the previous year (29,377) but remains above 2020 levels (21,725), according to RAC analysis.
Its analysis also shows that drivers of typical family cars pay an average of £460 if their car needs repair work for anything more serious than a puncture after being damaged by a pothole.
This figure is around 43 per cent more than the average cost of pothole compensation claims paid out by councils to drivers in 2023 at £260 per claim, according to Freedom of Information data.
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