Britain's pothole crisis IS getting worse: 19,000 miles of road needs work, figures show

They revealed that since the Coalition came to power another 2,262 miles of local roads are now in such poor condition that they need maintenance work.

Labour said this distance is the equivalent of Land’s End to John O’Groats and back again.

And it said the Department for Transport statistics show that 17 per cent of our local roads or more than 19,000 miles should be considered for maintenance work.

Shadow Transport Secretary Michael Dugher said: “Ministers need to take responsibility for the pothole epidemic on our local roads.

“Cameron slashed spending on road maintenance in 2010 and has ignored local roads for too long. Now over 2,220 miles more of our local roads need maintenance work.

“Motorists are justifiably sick and tired of their cars getting damaged because of potholes. It’s time to fix pothole Britain.”

This spring the Asphalt Industry Alliance said last year’s record wet winter had left Britain with a £12billion road repair bill – an increase of £1.5billion on the previous year.

It said there is a shortfall in local authorities’ road maintenance budgets while personal injury and vehicle damage rose by 20 per cent over the previous year.

Insurers estimate that potholes costs motorists £730 million a year while local authorities pay out more than £30 million in compensation claims due to poor roads.

Mr Dugher said that spending on all road maintenance on local authority minor roads has dropped by 20 per cent since 2010 - from £2.2billion to £1.7million.

He said the Government’s planned £976 million a year for local road maintenance is set to decline in real terms to £865 million a year by 2020.

The Local Government Association, whose members are responsible for 98 per cent of the road network, said local roads need investment.

As ministers announced a £15billion investment in motorways and A roads, LGA Transport spokesman Councillor Peter Box said: “It is also time to stop treating our strategic road network in isolation. Increasing motorway lanes and improving A-roads alone won’t ease congestion but will only speed up cars between growing delays and traffic jams on local roads.

“With the Government predicting a 43 per cent increase in local traffic by 2040, this will only get worse.

“It would now take councils more than a decade and £12 billion to bring our roads up to scratch. That is why we are calling for the Government to inject a further £1 billion a year into local roads maintenance by investing just two pence per litre of existing fuel duty. Our recent national polling found 83 per cent of the public back the plan.”

David Gerrans, the managing director of Warranty Direct which runs the Potholes.co.uk website, said: “Axle and suspension damage is one of the most common causes of unwanted bills for vehicle owners.

“Analysis of our 50,000 live warranty policies shows the average cost of repairing the kind of damage typically caused by potholes is around £247.

“Local councils do what they can with the budgets they are given for road maintenance, but it tends to be temporary ‘patch and mend’ solutions, meaning that our roads are as bad as ever.

“Until Central Government puts up a substantial amount of money to fix the roads more permanently, we will simply continue to find ourselves in this unwanted position each and every winter.”

The Department for Transport said that councils have been given £10billion for local roads between 2010 and 2021 and can take part in a Highway Maintenance Efficiency Programme to prevent potholes appearing.

And after last winter’s record floods, ministers provided a £200million emergency pothole fund which paid for three million potholes to be repaired.