LANCASHIRE is becoming the ‘pothole capital of the north’, a councillor has claimed.

Cllr Azhar Ali, leader of the Labour group on Lancashire County Council, said 'roads and streets are rapidly deteriorating and are becoming akin to roads in the third world.'

Conservative bosses said they were 'fixing the mess the last Labour administration had made to the roads.'

But Cllr Ali said councillors have been 'inundated with hundreds of complaints about the state of our roads and streets.'

He said: "Many streets in parts of Lancashire including my own area of Nelson for example are down to the setts, bus routes are peppered with pot-holes and the pot holes are a real threat to not only the safety of cyclists but also to car drivers. "

"Pot-holes reported months ago have still not been mended never mind dealing with new problems.

"In addition the response times to reports of highways flooding or pot-holes is up to 20 working days, its taking that long just to get a response to say that the hole is not big enough yet and pot holes do not get better with age – no wonder local residents are fed up with lack of action in their communities."

'Growing plague' of potholes across East Lancashire leaving roads 'unusable' and dangerous

However Conservative councillor Andrew Snowden, Lancashire County Council lead member for highways and transport, said its cabinet had agreed to put an extra £5m into the budget to invest in roads in July last year.

He said: "Of this, £2m of this is going towards improving the way we repair potholes.

" But Labour abstained when we put £5m into the highways budget.

"So it is hypocritical of them now to complain as we try to fix the mess they left the roads in.

"Labour underinvested in the roads and cuts the highways budget."