Extra £12m to partly tackle massive pothole fixing backlog in Devon

Garage owner Andy Dafters is seeing more and more cars damaged by potholes

An extra £12m will be spent on fixing potholes and road drainage problems in Devon.

But Devon County Council said it was facing a backlog of repairs which would cost £200m to fix.

Political opponents say the council needs to change its approach to improve standards of road maintenance in the county.

A garage owner said he was seeing more and more cars needing to be repaired due to damage caused by potholes.

Devon County Council said a settlement with the government to reduce its deficit on special needs education allowed a £10m spending increase for potholes, with another £2m from other budget savings.

Devon has the largest road network in the country with more than 8,000 miles (12,875km) of roads to maintain.

Stuart Hughes is the cabinet member for roads at Devon County Council

The council's cabinet member for roads, Stuart Hughes, Conservative, said the condition of roads had deteriorated this year.

He said: "We've seen more wet weather than we've ever experienced. It's far worse this year than ever before and I would put it down to global warming."

Mr Hughes said the extra £12m would make a big difference "right across the county".

He said: "It's not just filling potholes, we're going to be looking at larger areas and carrying out patches - by doing that and surface dressing as well you're going to prolong your asset for another nine or ten years."

He added that while the £12m was welcome, there was a £200m backlog of repairs.

The council's report notes the government has indicated it will pass on more than £200m from HS2 savings to fix potholes in Devon from 2025 to 2034.

Martin Wrigley, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said more work was need to resolve road related problems

Martin Wrigley, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats at Devon County Council, said of the extra £12m: "If only that would sort everything out.

"The difficulty is that what they're doing isn't going to fix the scale of the problem.

"There are still too many issues with long-term potholes and failures, too many issues with drainage, not enough work going into real maintenance and ongoing repairs before things go drastically wrong."

Potholes on the A377 near Eggesford in Devon

Garage owner Andy Dafters from Crediton Car and MOT Centre, said he was seeing more and more vehicles coming in with problems caused by potholes.

He said: "The problems we see most of all are probably bulges in tyres, burst tyres, suspension coil springs are quite popular as well."

Mr Dafters said potholes were being filled but then "in two or three days they are there again".

He said: "I think all the garages will tell you the same - there are a lot more suspension coil spring problems than what we ever used to do, and I think that's due to the roads and the road conditions."