Over 100 councils in England will receive funding from the Department for Transport, in the first year of a four-year £250m scheme intended to fix over 4 million potholes by 2020/21.
Allocations have been made on the basis that councils can fill a pothole for £53. Funding is calculated according to the size of the local road network in the area, and the single biggest allocation for 2016/17 is Devon, which will receive over £1.9m to fill 36,830 potholes. A total of 19 allocations over £1m have been made to councils.
Announcing the funding, transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin highlighted that almost every journey starts and ends on a local road, so the funding was key to tackling the “blight” of potholes.
“This is just one part of our unprecedented investment in local road maintenance over the next 5 years,” he added.
“We are giving a record £6bnto local authorities in England that will improve journeys across the regions [between 2015/16 and 2020/21].”
The full list of councils receiving over £1m this year is:
Cornwall
Cumbria
Derbyshire
Devon
Essex
Gloucestershire
Hampshire
Kent
Lancashire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk
Northumberland
North Yorkshire
Oxfordshire
Shropshire
Somerset
Staffordshire
Suffolk
Surrey