Council pledges £67m to repair potholes and roads

A total of £67m will be spent on pothole repairs and renewing road surfaces

The new administration at Kent County Council (KCC) has pledged to spend £67m on the county's roads.

The money will be used to repair potholes, renew road surfaces and prevent future damage, a spokesperson said.

In May, Reform UK took control of KCC, wiping out the Conservative majority after nearly 30 years.

Linden Kemkaran, council leader, said: "Kent's residents have told us loud and clear that they are fed up with the poor state of our roads."

She added: "Years of short-term, reactive funding from successive governments have left our road network in decline."

A Department for Transport (DfT) spokesperson said: "We are delivering record investment to end the pothole plague, which is why Kent County Council will receive more than £50 million to fix its roads this year."

The new investment, which the council said was already under way, includes:

• £25m for renewing and reconstructing roads

• £10m for preventative measures to stop potholes forming

• £11m for quick repairs

• £14m additional funding from DfT for a dedicated pothole and patching programme – a 65% increase on last year's investment

Peter Osborne, cabinet member for highways and transport, said: "So far, we've repaired more than 12,000 potholes – and we're not stopping."

Toby Howe, highways and transportation strategic resilience manager at KCC, told BBC Radio Kent earlier in July the authority had contractors ready to fix Kent's potholes, but not sufficient funding to do so.

A report in March found that the backlog of repairs to "pothole-plagued" roads in the south-east of England was £2.5bn.