Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she has made an assessment of the merits of (a) self-healing asphalt and (b) other methods to tackle potholes.

The Government is committed to enabling local highway authorities to maintain and renew their local highway networks. Decisions on which materials to use to repair their roads are matters for local highway authorities, but the Government encourages them to trial innovative processes and materials. The Department is currently supporting a £30 million “Live Labs” research programme, part of which allows innovative and environmentally friendly road-mending materials of this sort to be trialled and evaluated. The lessons learned will be shared with other local highway authorities.

A number of UK research institutions, including Swansea and Cambridge universities, are working on advanced materials, including self-healing asphalt, for filling potholes and resurfacing roads. Self-healing asphalt could potentially help prevent cracks from turning into potholes, but the technology is at an early stage and has not been tested at scale.