The pothole crisis exposes a decaying state – it’s time to start fixing it

Carolyn Thomas – MS for north Wales

Much like the network of veins in the human body which we couldn’t live without, our country’s roads make up a vital, sprawling network that acts as a base for connectivity and transportation – the lifeblood of a 21st century modern state.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the state of the country’s roads is a topic which you will hear being discussed from your workplace to your living room and from your doctor’s waiting room to your local pub, and everywhere in between.

A few months ago, following the election of Eluned Morgan as the First Minister of Wales, and as part of her nationwide listening exercise, I joined Eluned outside a supermarket in Flintshire to hear first-hand the concerns that people had about the current state of the country, and their priorities for the future.

Sharp claws

As you’d expect, the health service, the cost-of-living, and the 20mph speed limit featured in a number of our conversations. But the topic that was raised more frequently than any other was roads and potholes.

As a former Deputy Leader of a County Council with responsibility for roads and transportation, I can’t say I was surprised. When the sharp claws of fourteen years of austerity have left lasting scars on everything from our health service and our schools through to our justice and welfare systems, our roads never stood a chance of escaping the swingeing axe of austerity cuts.

Over the course of those fourteen years, potholes became a ubiquitous feature of austerity Britain – physical scars puncturing roads up and down the country, a lasting daily manifestation of the damage of austerity politics. Whether you’re using a car, a bus, a bicycle, or a mobility scooter, avoiding potholes is now baked in as a hazard before setting off on any journey.

Repairs

The scale of the problem is monumental. A report from the RAC this month showed a 17% increase in pothole-related breakdowns in the final three months of 2024, whilst the Local Government Association estimates that repairing Britain’s roads would cost a staggering £16bn.

It is entirely understandable why issues such as health and education dominate so much of the political bandwidth of governments across the United Kingdom. But for most people, they encounter the ‘government’ on a daily basis not through a hospital ward or a school classroom, but through the water that comes out of their tap, the electricity and gas that powers and heats their home, or the roads they use to get to and from work.

Water, energy, and roads: these are some of a state’s infrastructure basics. They are the building blocks upon which everything else relies. And whether it is crumbling roads, rocketing gas and electric prices, or the wanton and consequence-free pollution of our rivers and seas by private water companies, those building blocks are teetering on the brink.

Renewal

The election of a new UK Government provides an opportunity to finally turn the page on the politics of austerity, to halt the steady decay of our country’s infrastructure, and to bring about much-needed renewal.

Here in Wales, it is welcome that the First Minister recognises both the challenges and the opportunities, as is reflected in her prioritisation of connecting communities through transformed public transport and fixing Welsh roads.

The Welsh Government’s draft budget includes £25m in increased funding for road repairs, as well as unlocking an additional £60m in a local authority prudential borrowing fund for councils to use to fix potholes. Combined, these measures will see 100,000 potholes repaired across the country.

Innovative 

There are also examples of local authorities in Wales using innovative solutions to tackle the problem, such as in Flintshire, where the County Council has invested in a Pothole Pro machine which can fix potholes in a fraction of the time of a traditional repair, and at half the cost.

These are vital first steps in the task of steadily erasing the scars of austerity from the face of Welsh roads. But more than that, it is about once again providing people with confidence in the ability of their government to get the basics right.

Whether it is water, electricity, gas, or roads, they form part of the unavoidable backdrop of everyday life across the country. If we can’t get that backdrop right, the only beneficiaries, as we have seen across Europe and elsewhere, are the snake oil salesmen of the far-right.