The current state of road infrastructure
Road maintenance in the UK is under intense pressure – and for the professionals trying to deliver, track and manage these projects, the operational challenge is only getting harder. With budgets stretched, scrutiny rising, and deadlines tightening, field teams need to work smarter with better visibility and control.
A quick look at our roads tells a clear story: years of underfunding and slow decline. Trade shows have seen council figureheads repeatedly warning of impact due to long-term funding constraints forcing them into tough decisions just to maintain existing assets. Gaining clarity and understanding the
At Re-flow, we’re keeping a close eye on what’s happening in the world of infrastructure investment and road repair. Why? Because understanding the context helps our users – whether contractors, council teams, or civil engineering firms – stay ahead and position themselves for success. Here's a snapshot of where things stand.
Every year, the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) commission an independent survey of local authority highway departments – and their latest calculations estimate road repairs alone will cost £17 billion – and take over a decade.
Initiatives have been put in place, which I’ll get to – but first let’s set the scene in a bit more clarity.
Stats around our roads
Road maintenance:
As of 2023, councils in county areas plan to spend an average of £26,000 per mile on road repairs, pothole filling, and constructing new junctions and networks.
Elsewhere, councils in London plan to spend £67,000 per mile, urban metropolitan councils £50,000, and local authorities in England's eight 'core cities' £66,000 per mile.
Other infrastructure costs:
In 2019, the National Infrastructure Commission estimated the need for a significant uplift in annual public expenditure on infrastructure.
This will require £26.9 billion between 2020-2025, £29.2 billion between 2025-30, and rise as high as £31.5 billion per annum between 2030- 35.
With investment on the rise but still falling short of what's needed, local authorities and contractors are under pressure to deliver more with less. Software that streamlines job planning, reporting, and compliance – like Re-flow – can make the difference between surviving and thriving in this landscape.
Inflationary Costs:
Over the last few years, councils have faced rising costs due to inflation. For example, research estimates that council costs from inflation rose from £789m in March 22 to £1.5bn June 22.
This included increased costs for services, including building new roads and pothole filling.
Of course, inflation has since dropped to 2.8%, though it’s expected to rise again over the course of the year, and the figures above for 2022 show how impactful that can be.
What’s being done?
During last year’s autumn budget, £100 billion in public sector capital investment was promised over the next five years, with the aim of attracting further private investment, stimulating growth, modernising UK infrastructure, and addressing the repairs we’ve mentioned.
A new 10-year infrastructure strategy will also be released in June, alongside a spending review.
These moves signal a growing demand for transparency, data-led reporting, and efficient delivery. Field management tools like Re-flow help meet these expectations head-on – giving you real-time job visibility, automated audit trails, and evidence for meeting KPIs and funding criteria.
The spring budget, released in March, contained news directly related to pothole repair.
Pressure on councils: £1.6 billion has been allocated to fixing roads across the country. The government will pressure councils to publish data on their progress fixing potholes or see a part of the additional funding withheld.
Councils facing deadlines: There is now a deadline of 30 June to publish reports detailing ‘how much they’re spending, how many potholes they’ve filled, what percentage of roads are in what condition, and how they are minimising disruption.’
Funding for National Highways: £4.8 billion is being made available to National Highways to ‘deliver critical road schemes and maintain motorways and major A-roads.’
A response from the Local Government Association (LGA): the extra money seems to have been welcomed, though with caution. The announcement adds an extra £500 million for councils’ road maintenance budgets. The LGA said: ‘The £500 million will help start to address the previously ever-growing backlog of local road repairs…it’s in everyone’s interests to ensure that public money is well spent. This includes the Government playing its full part by using the Spending Review to ensure that councils receive sufficient, long-term funding certainty, so they can focus their efforts on much more cost-effective, preventative measures rather than reactively fixing potholes, which is more expensive.”
The extra spending seems welcome, but at the same time somewhat short of the £17 billion required for a clean-sweep overhaul of the country’s roads. The question then becomes, as always in politics, who is going to pay for it? A fiscal deficit in the country’s finances for last year’s budget – estimates of the size vary depending on the source, ranging from £22 billion to £9.5 billion – suggest a challenge.
There are other initiatives worth mentioning that also aim to raise money towards road repair.
As we reported in our article ‘Get on top of new highways compliance laws’ street works regulations are changing.
One impact is that ‘Local authorities with lane rental schemes must use at least 50% of any surplus funds on pothole repairs or resurfacing.’
The RAC shared an article in January that suggested there are likely over 1 million potholes across England alone, and likely around 1.5 million across the UK. There were periods in 2024 where almost half of all breakdowns attended by the RAC were in part attributed to potholes.
The UK’s wet and cold climate contains a dangerous mix – a literal recipe for pothole creation. Some figures suggest pothole-related compensation claims more than doubled between 2022 and 2023, so it’s clear that the issue isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s a financial burden for motorists too.
In conclusion, in an industry where every mile counts and every pothole is a headline, having systems in place isn't just nice to have – it's essential.