England’s roads are in rough shape — and the numbers show just how little is being done to fix them. Despite the ongoing issue with potholes, only 3% of the country’s 183,000-mile local road network saw any form of maintenance last year. That includes repairs like resurfacing, strengthening, or preservation treatments.
In total, just 4,894 miles of road were worked on during the 2023/24 financial year. That might sound like progress, especially since it's an 18% increase from the previous year, but it’s still a long way off where we were six years ago. Back in 2017/18, over 7,500 miles of road were maintained — meaning there’s been a 35% drop in maintenance overall since then.
Major roads aren’t being looked after much better. Only 5% of England’s A roads — 817 miles out of a total 17,860 — received any attention last year. That’s down by a third from the 1,222 miles repaired in 2017/18. The picture is even worse for minor routes. Just 2% of B and C roads were maintained last year, which amounts to only 4,080 miles out of a 165,000-mile network.
Digging deeper, the RAC found that half of England’s 152 local councils didn’t carry out any preventative maintenance on A roads in 2023/24. That includes treatments like surface dressing and micro surfacing — quick, cost-effective methods that help stop potholes from forming in the first place. Even more worrying, over a third of councils didn’t do any of this kind of work on smaller roads either. That’s a sharp increase compared to six years ago, when only 28% of councils skipped preventative treatments.
While there was a slight rise in resurfacing work across the country — up 2% to 1,242 miles — it’s hardly worth celebrating. Sixteen councils didn’t resurface a single A road last year, and ten didn’t touch any of their minor roads either.
Some areas did stand out, though. Gloucestershire resurfaced the most A roads, covering 24 miles of its 337-mile network — double what it managed the year before, and enough to bump Kent from the top spot. Staffordshire led the way on preservation work for A roads for the second year in a row, treating 37 miles, which is 9% of its total network. In terms of minor roads, Surrey resurfaced 50 miles out of a 2,958-mile network. Norfolk was top for preservation work on smaller roads, treating 302 miles — 5% of its B, C, and unclassified roads — for the second year running.
The RAC’s analysis comes shortly after the government gave local councils a record £1.6 billion to tackle potholes. It’s the biggest single payout for road maintenance ever handed out in England. According to Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, "It’s good to see an increase in the amount of road maintenance being carried out by councils from the previous financial year, but that’s hardly great progress given the 2022/23 figure was a five-year low.
"And it remains the case that still only a slither of England’s total road network is getting any maintenance attention whatsoever.
"This reinforces our belief that most councils are in a cycle of merely filling potholes rather than looking after their roads properly.
"The bigger picture is far more concerning because it still shows a significant decline in the proportion of our roads strengthened, resurfaced or preserved compared to six years ago.
"As the Government has just given councils a record amount of funding to look after their roads, we hope to see a significant improvement in the quality of road surfaces due to the extra maintenance they will be able to carry out in the next 12 months."
The long-term outlook is even more worrying. Experts from the Asphalt Industry Alliance recently warned that fixing all of England and Wales’ damaged roads would cost £17 billion. They also said that within the next five years, one in every six miles of local road will be structurally unsound unless major improvements are made.
Mike Hansford, chief executive of the Road Surface Treatments Association, argued that "Preventative road surface treatments offer councils a cost-effective and lower-carbon approach to managing road assets through their lifecycle.
"If you invested in most other assets, you would invest in periodic treatments to keep that asset in good condition to achieve optimum performance. An asphalt road should be no different.
"This preventative maintenance approach results in roads being kept in good condition for longer, reduces future pothole formation, and allows local authorities to treat more of their road networks."
