British town with most potholes per mile NAMED as council defends repairs

Potholes are a blight on drivers in Britain everywhere, as new research reveals over 480,000 were reported last year alone.

They’re caused by rainwater seeping into cracks in the surface and freezing. The weather can’t be helped, but infrastructure investment in the nation’s roads can.

There is now an 11-year backlog for pothole repairs – with the total cost of filling all of them estimated at £14billion, according to the Asphalt Industry Alliance.

As a result, local authorities in England and Wales last year paid out £11.6million in compensation to motorists, cyclists and pedestrians for damages caused by potholes.

Not all areas are equally affected, however. Britain is crisscrossed by some 210,000 miles of road – Express.co.uk takes a look at the bumpiest stretches to find out which town takes the crown of pothole capital.

Motoring experts at Bill Plant Driving School submitted Freedom of Information requests to all councils in England and Wales, asking for the total number of potholes reported in 2022, as well as the number of those repaired by the council.

In terms of potholes per mile, Kirklees in West Yorkshire was found to have the worst quality roads in the country. 

With 22,513 potholes along 1,191 miles of tarmac, the metropolitan borough surrounding Huddersfield has a country-leading 19.7 potholes per mile – over eight times the national average of 2.3 per mile.

Councillor Masood Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Environment told Express.co.uk: “Kirklees Council fixed 37,538 potholes across the district in 2022. Regular scheduled inspections are carried out across the highway network on a monthly, three, six and twelve monthly cycle dependant on the road.

“It is possible, however, for defects to develop between our scheduled highway safety inspections and we encourage road users to report these through our website.”

In second place was Lancashire, where over 67,493 potholes were reported, working out to 15.3 per mile. Then came Southhampton (13.7), followed by Kingston upon Hull (12.3) and Bolton (11.1).

Caerphilly is the pothole capital of Wales – being seventh-worst in Britain with 9.9 per mile – but the Welsh also boast the smoothest roads of all in Powys, where just 0.06 potholes per mile were found.

A recent report by the Liberal Democrats accused the Government of creating a “pothole postcode lottery”. The party claimed repairs took up to 567 days – 18 months – in Stoke-on-Trent, and up to 556 days in Westminster, right in the heart of the British capital.

This is because, they said, local authority highway maintenance budgets have been slashed by £500million since the 2020 to 2021 financial year.