Angela Rayner slams Rishi Sunak over pothole backlog after failing to fix Britain's roads

Britain’s roads now have 100 times as many potholes as there are craters on the moon, the Labour party has claimed, as they aim to expose “the Tories’ abject failure to maintain Britain’s roads”.

According to statistics from Vehicle Contracts, it is estimated that there are more than one million potholes in the UK in 2023, with just over 9,000 craters estimated to be on the Moon.

In 2021, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted: “At the last budget we put aside enough to fill 50 million potholes by the end of the Parliament. So enjoy #NationalPotholeDay before they’re all gone..”

However, Labour said the pothole backlog is at a record high three years later, rising to an “eye-watering £16.3 billion - a blackhole that would take a decade to fix”.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for Local government, said: “Rishi Sunak vowed to rid Britain of potholes, but he’s living on another planet. Under the Tories, Britain’s roads look more like the surface of the Moon than the safe, secure roads that taxpayers left counting the cost of damaged tyres expect.

“The Conservatives have taken a sledgehammer to local government, and it is local people paying the price. After 14 years of Tory neglect, councils up and down the country have been left crumbling with the services communities rely upon left full of holes.

“Labour will be on the side of drivers, and put local services first, ending the Tories’ sticking plaster approach by providing integrated, multi-year funding settlements to local leaders, giving them greater certainty to plan for the future.”

According to the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey, Britain’s local roads are in the worst condition they have ever been in for at least 28 years.