Revealed: the huge variation in UK pothole repair costs
Tired of bone-shaking, battered roads? Sick of dodging chasms in the Macadam? Well, consider this: UK councils mend potholes at a unit cost that varies from the price of a roadside burger to what you might spend on a full set of tyres, with costs ranging from just over £4 to a staggering £656 each. That’s according to Freedom of Information (FOI) data gathered by the carmaker Citroën.
The gaping price divide can be partially explained by the fact that different councils use different processes to fix potholes. If everyone standardised at the cheapest method, over 33 million potholes could have been fixed in 2024 – 17 times the number that actually were.
Unsurprisingly, Citroën thinks we would all benefit from its cars’ famously squishy suspension systems. But we're more interested in which councils pay the most and least to fix their roads...
Michael Gallagher
08 May 2025
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