Lib Dems promise extra £300m to help fix Britain’s pothole problem – but is it enough?

As a part of their 2024 manifesto, the Liberal Democrats have committed to spending an extra £300m to fill in over 1.2 million potholes a year, should they win the General Election.

The party’s leader, Sir Ed Davey said: “The Conservatives have driven us down a motorway of decay – roads are crumbling, and motorists are suffering as a result.

“The Conservatives have overseen cuts to our transport network, maintenance works delays and the decline in the state of our roads. For all of their lip service to motorists, it is clear the Conservatives have failed them.

“Only the Liberal Democrats have a real plan to fix the state of our roads by giving the money to local councils, who know their roads and are best placed to fix them.”

In order to pay for the work on roads across the UK, the Lib Dems would redirect funding from other road-building projects.

As a part of the announcement, the party described the current strategy to fill in potholes as a ‘postcode lottery’, with some councils taking up to 18 months to full in potholes and cracks in the roads.

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RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “We welcome the Lib Dems' promise of more funds for councils to fix their roads, especially as they’ve assured us this is on top of – rather than instead of – the £8.3bn of funding the Conservatives had already reallocated from HS2. 

“But more cash is only part of the answer. We need the next government to get to the root of the issue by committing councils to carry out more vital preventative surface dressing work as well as resurfacing the poorest quality roads, which they can only do if they have long-term certainty of funding.

“One solution is ringfencing a small proportion of funds raised from fuel duty to help authorities finally bring the roads back to a fit-for-purpose state.”