The pothole puzzle: the bumpy ride to fixing Britain’s broken roads

Councils fix a pothole every 17 seconds – but getting on top of the repair backlog would cost £18.6bn. Why is it so hard to solve a problem that drives the nation crazy? Marsh Street in the historic centre of Bristol is a modest little stretch of road with an office block at one end, a Thai restaurant at the other, and an almighty mess in between. Along its length of 200 metres or so, the tarmac surface of the road is pockmarked with many dozens of cracks, patches, divots and holes. In some spots where the surface has worn away, three or more layers of road structure are exposed beneath. What is a bouncy enough ride in a bus or car is even more of an assault course for cyclists, a number of whom weave carefully down its length as they cut through the city centre. “I think it’s quite ridiculous how bad it is,” says Gary Gainey, nodding at the surface – and as a Bristol bus driver, he is well acquainted with the bumpiest bits of its road network. Steering heavy vehicles over hollows and humps can play havoc with drivers’ backs and wrists, Gainey says, and his colleagues swap intel when a particularly bad crater appears on one of their routes. It’s not as if buses can s