Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to help ensure that local authorities adopt preventative road maintenance approaches in line with the commissioned guidance.

The Government has made available an additional £500 million for highways maintenance for 2025/26, bringing the total available funding this year to £1.6 billion. To qualify for their full share of this funding uplift, local highway authorities had to publish reports setting out how they comply with best practice, including in relation to the extent to which they prioritise preventative maintenance.

In November, the Government has confirmed a record £7.3 billion investment into local highways maintenance for the period of 2026/27 to 2029/30. By providing long term funding certainty, the Department enables local highway authorities to better plan ahead and move away from expensive, short-term pothole repairs and to instead invest in preventative road surface treatments so that roads can be fixed properly and fewer potholes form in the first place.

Earlier in January, the Department published a new rating system for every highway authority in England. Each local highway authority received a red, amber or green rating based on the condition of their roads, how much they are spending to maintain it, and whether they do so using best practice, including by adopting more preventative maintenance. The ratings, which will be updated periodically, provide an incentive for councils to adopt more preventative maintenance, and enable the Department to provide targeted support to authorities to help them adopt best practice.

To gain access to all the Department’s increased highways maintenance funding in the future, local highway authorities will have to continue to demonstrate that they comply with best practice, for example by adopting more preventative maintenance.