£237m needed to fix the roads in west Northamptonshire - more than the total funding allocated to the entire country

The estimated cost of completing all work on West Northamptonshire’s roads is more than the amount of additional funding allocated for road repairs across the entire country.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pledged last Wednesday (March 15) to increase the fund available to help repair England’s roads by £200m – West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) said resurfacing all of its roads to ensure it has a cost-effective and sustainable network would cost £236.6m.

WNC will receive an extra £1.9m from Mr Hunt’s now £700m ‘Pothole Fund’ from April. It had already allocated £13.2m of its own money and received £4.7m in grants to repair roads in 2023/24 after winter weather wreaked havoc on its damaged network.

But Mark Morrell, perhaps better known as Brackley campaigner Mr Pothole, said current funding across the country is “like peeing in the sea” and that extra money is desperately needed to halt the decline.

WNC told Mr Morrell in summer 2021 that the so-called backlog on its network was £217.8m, meaning it has since ballooned by £18.8m. A number of factors, including inflation, labour costs and new work needed to fix further deterioration have contributed to the increased cost.

Mr Morrell was critical of North Northamptonshire Council (NNC), which will receive an extra £1.5m from Mr Hunt’s roads fund. In a freedom of information request submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), NNC said it did not know the value of its roads backlog.

He said: “For a council, its largest asset is its highways network. With basic principles, you should know the value and deterioration [of the roads]. It’s about managing that asset with the money you have got. If you haven’t got that to your fingertips, who is managing that?”

NNC said it was aware of about 3,800 defects on its roads. At about 1,100 miles, NNC’s network is smaller than WNC’s, which is about 1,500 miles long. Both authorities took on responsibility from Northamptonshire County Council after it was dissolved in 2021.

Coun Phil Larratt, WNC’s cabinet member for environment, transport, highways and waste said “a combination of factors have contributed to difficulties in getting on top of road repairs” in the area, “including historic underfunding and large cost increases”.

Coun Larratt said while recent funding will mean improvements, they will not result in “pristine new road surfaces” because the council cannot pay for them. “We’re concentrating on addressing the most significant issues which are having the greatest impact,” he added.