00:00Across the West Midlands, pothole, cracked surfaces and patchwork repairs remain a daily frustration for drivers.
00:08The Asphalt Industry Alliance's latest alarm survey says councils in this region face a £1.94 billion backlog of carriageway
00:17repairs,
00:18with only 46% of the local road network reported to be in good condition.
00:24And ministers now say authorities could lose part of future highways funding if they cannot prove road money is being
00:32spent on maintenance.
00:34We seem to be sort of getting to the state where it's, as I say, making a run anywhere without
00:40sort of coming across potholes is almost seems to be nigh and impossible.
00:44I did speak to someone who was on holiday in another part of the UK and they said they noticed
00:48that the roads were sort of immeasurably better.
00:51Now, of course, why should it be like that? We have a problem in this country.
00:54We have a sort of particularly changeable client. Rain in the winter, frost, sometimes snow, sometimes gets hot.
01:00So we get that sort of changeability, which, of course, is not good for tarmac.
01:05If you get consistent conditions, you can deal with that.
01:07The government says councils in England now face tougher rules and could lose around a third of next year's share
01:14of the £1.6 billion highways pot
01:17if they fail to show the money is going on road maintenance.
01:21Separate Department for Transport ratings point a mixed picture in the West Midlands.
01:26Coventry and Samwell are rated green overall, while Birmingham, Dudley, Solihull, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Wolverhampton are among the authorities rated
01:35amber.
01:36Nationally, the RAC says it attended 26,048 pothole-related breakdowns in 2025, with local roads resurfaced on average only
01:47once every 97 years, according to the alarm survey.
01:52I think also what we may be sort of seeing the sort of the first indications of cars are getting
01:59heavier.
02:00They're bigger. You go back 100 years ago when cars were first starting to be used.
02:04There were much smaller affairs, but also more particularly, we've got a sort of greater number of electric cars driving
02:09around.
02:10And of course, they sort of weigh considerably more because of the battery.
02:13So I think the sort of the fact that we have heavier vehicles is bound to be sort of an
02:18issue.
02:18And of course, we have lots of sort of vans driving around, dropping sort of stuff that we bought online
02:23and lorries, of course, which do sort of a lot more damage.
02:27Repairs are normally carried out, certainly on the sort of the roads we drive around most.
02:31Motorways are different. That's the National Highways Agency.
02:34It's councils. And of course, councils will all sort of claim that they have limited budgets, which have been ever
02:40more squeezed.
02:40For drivers, the pressure is now on councils to show repairs have been done properly and that longer term maintenance
02:47is being planned, not just short term patching.
02:50With costs still rising and funding now under sharper scrutiny, the condition of Westmillan's roads is likely to stay firmly
02:58in the spotlight.
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