MONEY councils have been forced to cut from road maintenance funding since 2010 could have paid for the repair of nearly 8 million potholes, analysis by the Local Government Association reveals.

Latest figures show that the amount of money councils have been able to spend on routine road maintenance has fallen from £1.1 billion in 2009/10 to around £701 million in 2017/18 – a 37 per cent reduction.

Routine road maintenance includes minor road repairs such as potholes, cleaning drains, inspection and fixing street lighting.

The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, estimates that this reduction could have covered the cost of repairing 7.8 million potholes.

According to Government figures, Blackburn with Darwen Council spent £4.89 million on routine road maintenance in 2009/10, falling to £759,000 in 2017/18.

But Lancashire County Council bucked the trend with spending on road maintenance rising from £27.59 million ten years ago to £34.9 million in 2017/18.

Councils are fixing a pothole every 17 seconds but it will still take more than £9 billion and a decade to tackle our road repairs backlog. Adequate government investment in the Spending Review is needed to make long-term improvements on our dilapidated roads.

The LGA’s transport spokesman, Cllr Martin Tett, said: “Potholes can be the bane of the motorist’s life. They can damage vehicles and cause accidents.

“Councils are on the side of the motorist, and are doing all they can to keep our roads safe and resilient, repairing potholes as quickly as they can.

“But unprecedented funding cuts have meant councils are increasingly limited in how much they can invest in looking after our country’s roads.

“It is not right that the Government spends 43 times per mile more on maintaining our national roads – which make up just 3 per cent of all roads – than on local roads, which are controlled by councils and make up 97 per cent of England’s road network.

“While the extra one-off funding announced in recent years has helped, we need government to follow with a long-term funding plan to save our roads in the Spending Review.”