Chancellor announces £200 million to address pothole crisis

The UK Chancellor has announced a £200 million road fixing project focused on potholes.

The project comes as pothole complaints have seemed to rise significantly in recent years. Its target, the RAC reports, is to fix four million potholes in the UK. 

Initially, the £200 million will be passed down from the central government in Westminster to local governments around the UK, which means that local roads and lanes will be targeted, rather than motorways, for example. 

The money itself comes in response to a campaign run by the Daily Mail, who have called Britain’s pothole problem the “Pothole Plague”. Indeed, almost half of the UK’s smaller roads are in need of having potholes fixed, or even just being resurfaced, according to Department for Transport data. 

Despite the money being put up by the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and the amount of potholes that the project is targeting to fix, the RAC is sceptical of its effectiveness.

RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said: "While welcome, another £200m is unlikely to make a big difference to the overall quality of our dilapidated local roads. 

"We need to significantly increase funding for local road maintenance and improvement so councils can resurface roads properly rather than patching them up and hoping for the best.

“Last year the Government spent £1.125bn on local roads in England which is in stark contrast to the £7bn that went into major roads from car tax, despite local roads covering so many more miles."

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