According to Zurich Municipal, a public sector insurer, over 38,000 potholes still need fixing - and the number is rising.
The Government recently earmarked £1.6 billion to fix the country’s roads - a near 50% increase in local road maintenance funding. Despite this, the public sector insurer is urging the Government to increase local authority funding to support local maintenance and road repairs.
Data from Zurich Municipal shows that they saw 19% more pothole-related claims in 2024, with the figure rising to 10,648. Statistics from the insurer also show that drivers are more likely to hit potholes between January and March, with more than 5,000 claims relating to tyres, alloys, and car suspensions during this time. March has the highest number of pothole-related incidents, with over 2,300 claims in this month alone – an increase of 181%.
A closer look at the claims data shows that these incidents caused over £2.6 million worth of damage.
Risk expert at Zurich Municipal, Alix Bedford, said: “We’ve had a particularly wet start to the year, which is only going to exacerbate the pothole problem that is plaguing the nation.”
They continued: “While the additional funding that the Government pledged at the end of last year is a step in the right direction, councils need a lot more funding so that they are not just repairing the current cavities in the roads, to make them safer for all users, but also investing in the network so it doesn’t deteriorate as much in the first place.”
Currently, the £1.6 billion allocated by the Government to make the UK’s roads safer has been distributed between local authorities as follows:
- Southeast and London - £378m
- East Midland and West Midlands - £372m
- Northwest, Northeast, Yorkshire and Humber - £327m
- Southwest - £300m
- East of England - £244m
