AA warns ‘epidemic of potholes’ is to blame for breakdowns at 15-year high

A POTHOLE ‘epidemic’ has driven the number of breakdowns to a 15-year high, the AA said yesterday.

The firm revealed its patrol staff attended 1.91million breakdowns in the first half of the year, up 8 per cent from 1.76million in the same period last year.

It said this is ‘significantly higher’ than the average over the past decade and a half, and estimated up to a fifth of the 1.91million breakdowns it attended – roughly 380,000 – were from drivers who had hit a pothole.

AA chief executive Simon Breakwell said a severe winter was to blame for creating a pothole ‘epidemic’ which ‘led to a 15-year high in the number of breakdowns we serviced’. The AA said these conditions contributed to a 65 per cent slump in its pre-tax profits, to £28million for the six months to July 31.

Last night one motoring campaigner said the AA’s results were a damning indictment of Britain’s ‘third world roads’.

Mark Morrell, mayor of Brackley in Northamptonshire, has been dubbed Mr Pothole after spending years highlighting crumbling road surfaces. He said: ‘This is about decades of underinvestment in the roads, not bad weather. Motorists are treated like cash cows … yet have to put up with third world roads in a first world economy.’ Local councils and Highways England have been criticised for leaving potholes for weeks or even months before filling them in.

Town halls have said they are £556million short of the money they need to maintain the roads properly this year. The latest annual study by the Asphalt Industry Alliance estimated that it would take local authorities across England and Wales 14 years and £9.3billion to complete a backlog of repairs.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘We are already providing councils in England with over £6billion to help improve the condition of our local highways.’