THE MP for Weston, John Penrose, has said that it's "time to get moving" and start fixing the town's potholes.

It has been announced that another £632,000 of Government cash per year has been allocated to complete the task. This is on top of the already-existing £2.2million annual pothole repair fund, plus a one-off £890,000 pothole repair funding boost for this year in the most recent budget.

Mr Penrose said: "I've had countless messages from concerned residents about potholes in local roads.

"Too many journeys have turned into a slalom obstacle course where motorists and cyclists have to dodge around potholes that have become so numerous and deep that there's a genuine risk of damaging your car or coming off your bike.

“The latest figures say that each pothole costs the Council somewhere between £20 and £55 to repair, and that they fixed just 5,171 potholes in the last full calendar year.

"But the £3million+ they've already had available ought to mean they can do between 10 and 25 times that number. Now they’ve got even more cash, so it’s time to get moving. Local people will be expecting much safer, much smoother roads very soon."

Leader of North Somerset Council, Cllr Mike Bell, said: “Our local MP needs to get some maths lessons - or stop spinning. In real terms North Somerset Council has received less money from the government for potholes, not more.

"Compared to when his party came into power, the nation spends much less on repairing local roads than it did. North Somerset Council carries out around 21,000 repairs a year. Some of these are reactive, tackling issues as they are reported or spotted by our inspectors.

"Many are proactive fixes to try and spot defects before they become a problem.

“We have always spent most of our highways budget on long term preventative patching and surface dressing to try and reduce the number of issues. It’s the most cost effective thing to do.

"But we have 697 miles of road and a full resurfacing job costs around £1 million per mile which is why we aren’t able to resurface as extensively and quickly as residents and we would like.

“In 2020, the council received £2.6 million a year for potholes. This was cut in 2021 and in each year since to £2.2 million. Costs have gone up, the number of defects has gone up but the amount of funding has gone down.

"The latest national ALARM survey of road conditions says that the backlog of repairs nationally has grown to an all time high of £14 billion. They estimate that the average road will get resurfaced once every 116 years.”