Potholes and other bumps in the road can be incredibly frustrating for motorists, especially when nobody seems interested in sorting them out!
Not only do badly maintained roads add time to our daily journeys, they can damage our vehicles too. So which parts of the country are the worst offenders for poorly kept roads, and which have improved the most?
We’ve studied Department for Transport statistics to find out.
Motorways - high speed (70 mph) roads where slow vehicles and pedestrians are forbidden
A roads - major through routes which connect the country, but are smaller and slower than motorways
B roads - smaller trunk roads which connect the A road network, usually serving smaller settlements
C roads - A type of unclassified road or lane with low traffic volumes
For each local authority, we looked at the percentage of roads which were deemed to need maintenance back in 2008/09 and how this compares 10 years later.
The local authority with the biggest improvements is the Isle of Wight, which has gone from having 12% of A roads needing repair to 0% in 2018/19.
The island had long had some of the worst roads in the country but has seen big changes since major works began in 2013, with over 500km of road being rebuilt or resurfaced.
The Isle of Wight is one of just two areas in the whole country where all roads are deemed to be up to scratch. The other one is Halton, in Cheshire.
Several areas in the North East, including Newcastle, Sunderland and Gateshead, had just 1% of A roads and motorways needing repairs. So did parts of the east of the country, including Peterborough, Bedford and Central Bedfordshire.
Again, the Isle of Wight is the area that has made the biggest improvement when it comes to B and C roads, going from 15% needing maintenance 10 years ago to 0% now.
Many of the other areas with the biggest improvements in B and C roads are in the capital, including Newham (13% improvement), Camden, Richmond upon Thames and Wandsworth (all 11% improvements).
Again, the Isle of Wight comes top, with 0% of B and C roads needing maintenance, followed by many parts of the North East.
Other areas where just 1% of B and C roads need maintenance include Liverpool and Milton Keynes.
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Rank |
Local Authority |
Region |
Roads Requiring |
Roads Requiring |
Improvement |
|---|
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Rank |
Local Authority |
Region |
Roads Requiring |
Roads Requiring |
Improvement |
|---|
All data sourced from the Department for Transport’s road condition statistics, specifically Table RDC0120: Local authority managed classified roads where maintenance should be considered, by LA in England.
For both the A roads and motorways and B and C roads which are managed by each local authority, we took the percentage of roads where maintenance should be considered for 2008/09 and 2018/19 and calculated the difference.
Some local authorities were omitted as they used alternative technologies to collect data for their roads, meaning that they were not directly comparable with the rest of the areas, while a small number were omitted due to lack of reliable data.
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