New survey shows Welsh roads worst in Britain for resurfacing as Flintshire faces £48m backlog
Welsh roads are being resurfaced on average once every 132 years, the worst rate of any region in Britain, according to the annual road maintenance survey published today.
The figure comes from the Asphalt Industry Alliance’s ALARM survey 2026, which covers all local authorities in England and Wales and is independently verified by a registered member of the Royal Statistical Society.
The recommended resurfacing frequency is between 10 and 20 years.
England averages once every 106 years, London once every 39 years.
For unclassified roads in Wales, the back streets, estate roads and rural lanes, the figure rises to once every 182 years.
Resurfacing replaces the entire surface layer of a road before cracks can form and water can get in.
When roads go beyond their resurfacing schedule, surface cracks develop, water penetrates, and frost breaks the road apart, producing the potholes that councils then have to patch reactively rather than prevent.
The AA said it attended 137,000 pothole-related breakdown incidents across the UK in January and February this year, 25,000 more than the same period last year.
AA president Edmund King said: “We have been seeing with our own eyes, and feeling with our wheels, how record wet weather linked to substandard roads has led to many local roads becoming patchwork obstacle courses.”
The findings come as Flintshire County Council is receiving less than a third of the annual funding it says it needs to maintain its roads.
The council has an annual allocation of £1.5 million in capital funding and £225,000 in revenue funding for highway maintenance.
It estimates that £5 million a year is required to keep roads at a reasonable standard, with the current backlog of works valued at £48 million.
Flintshire was also ranked fifth slowest in England and Wales for repairing potholes, according to research published in January by Go.Compare, which submitted Freedom of Information requests to 171 councils.
The comparison site found Flintshire averaged 46.3 days to repair potholes between 2022 and 2024, behind only Staffordshire, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Hammersmith and Fulham.
Councillor Ted Palmer, Cabinet Member for Highways, Assets and Public Protection at Flintshire County Council, said: “Maintaining our highway network to a safe and appropriate standard is a significant challenge, particularly in the face of difficult financial times.”
He added: “It is essential that we manage our highways infrastructure efficiently, balancing immediate needs with long-term sustainability.”
The council said it faces “increasing pressures that continue to exist with constrained budgets, limited staff resources, an ageing network with a backlog of maintenance requirements and rising public expectations in respect of highway condition.”
Flintshire has adopted a Highway Asset Management Plan covering 2024 to 2030, which the council said targets safety first and aims to slow further deterioration.
The picture across Wales is similar.
Welsh councils collectively reported a shortfall of £52.7 million against what they said they needed to maintain their road networks to their own targets in 2025/26.
The total cost of clearing the accumulated maintenance backlog across all 22 Welsh authorities is estimated at £623.2 million, an average of £28.3 million per authority.
That figure has fallen from £43.4 million per authority last year, following the Welsh Government’s Local Government Borrowing Initiative, which unlocked £120 million in capital funding across all 22 Welsh councils.
However, one unnamed Welsh council official quoted in the ALARM report warned: “We took advantage of the Welsh Government’s borrowing initiative and the network has benefited considerably. But, if we don’t continue to receive extra funding, we’ll be back where we started in a couple of years’ time.”
83% of Welsh councils dealt with unforeseen highway costs last year, the highest rate of any region in the survey, at an average additional cost of £250,000 per authority, up from £174,300 the previous year.
Welsh councils filled 111,342 potholes in 2025/26 at an average planned repair cost of £69.45 each, rising to £88.89 for a reactive fix.
The survey estimates Welsh councils would take 15 years to clear the maintenance backlog even with adequate funding and resources in place — three years longer than the England average.
Across England and Wales combined, the total carriageway repair backlog has reached a record £18.62 billion, up 11% on last year, and would take 12 years to clear.
David Giles, chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, said: “There’s no polite way to put it: the condition of our local roads has become a national disgrace.”
He added: “It will be some time before the impact of increased funding levels, if fully delivered, will be noticed by the public. However, the dial could be moved quicker if the Government’s commitment to additional funding was frontloaded, rather than ramping up in the years to 2030.”
Separate data from the RAC, published in December 2025 based on Freedom of Information requests to councils across England, Scotland and Wales, shows that across Wales the proportion of successful pothole damage claims fell from 25% in 2021 to 17% in 2024, while the total number of claims rose 26% over the same period.
In Wales, Wrexham Council paid the most per successful claim at an average of £2,026 for each of the 38 claims it settled in 2024, according to the RAC data.
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “Drivers are still suffering the consequences of years of neglect to Britain’s local road network. But even if you submit a compensation claim the odds aren’t good, with around 40,000 requests for reimbursement turned down in 2024 alone.”
The RAC estimates the average repair bill for pothole damage worse than a puncture is £590, against an average payout of £390 for successful claims.
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