Pothole season is striking back: here's what you can do about it

Why potholes keep coming back – and what to do about it

TL;DR: Why are UK roads full of potholes?

Potholes are a year-round problem on UK roads, and they’re only getting worse.

The freeze-thaw cycle, years of underfunding, and increasingly heavy vehicles all play a part. For lease drivers, the risks are real: Tyre damage, suspension issues, and costly cosmetic repairs at the end of your contract.

Here’s what causes them, how to report them, and how to keep your car – and your end-of-lease bill – protected.

The state of UK roads is enough to drive anyone around the bend

Potholes are everywhere, and not just in winter.

They form in the wet, they grow in the cold, and they survive long enough to cause real damage to your car, your tyres, and your wallet.

For drivers, they’re a year-round hazard that’s getting harder to ignore.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through what causes potholes, why the problem keeps getting worse, and – most importantly – what you can do to protect yourself and your car every time you get behind the wheel.

What causes potholes?

If you live in the UK, you’re already familiar with the freeze-thaw cycle, even if you’ve never called it that.

When water seeps into small cracks in the road surface and temperatures drop, that water freezes and expands. This weakens the road’s structure from the inside. Then, when it thaws, it leaves behind gaps and voids.

And under the pressure of passing traffic, those gaps become potholes.

It’s a process that repeats itself all year. Cold and wet weather accelerates it in autumn and winter; heavy rain and traffic does the same in spring and summer.

There’s no off-season.

Vehicle weight makes things worse. Cars and SUVs have grown significantly heavier over the last decade, and weightier vehicles put more stress on road surfaces, widening existing cracks and creating new ones faster.

Poor road construction and a lack of maintenance complete the picture.

A road that’s been badly laid or left unrepaired for years is far more vulnerable to water seeping in and weight damage than one that’s properly maintained.

Why are UK roads in such bad shape?

The numbers tell a pretty grim story.

According to the RAC’s Pothole Index, its patrols attended 26,048 pothole-related breakdowns in 2025 – the equivalent of 71 every single day. That’s a 15% increase on 2024, and well above the long-term average.

And 2026 has started even worse.

In February alone, the RAC received 6,290 reports of pothole-related issues from broken-down drivers, which is over three times the figure for the same month in 2025.

For a driver unlucky enough to hit one hard enough to cause damage, the average repair bill for anything more serious than a puncture stands at £590, according to RAC garage data.

So, why can’t councils keep up?

The short answer is money. Or rather, the lack of it.

According to the Asphalt Industry Alliance’s (AIA) Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey 2026, the total shortfall in carriageway maintenance budgets across England and Wales now stands at £1.37 billion for 2025/26 alone.

To clear the entire backlog of repairs and bring roads up to a reasonable standard would cost £18.6 billion as a one-off – a figure that’s increased by more than 50% over the last decade. At the current rate, highway engineers estimate it would take 12 years to clear.

The government committed £1.6 billion to road maintenance for 2025/26 – a record level – and in April 2026 announced new rules requiring councils to prove they’re spending the money on roads or risk losing up to a third of next year’s funding.

It’s a step in the right direction.

But as the AIA ALARM survey notes, even with budgets rising, conditions have only improved marginally. Roads in England are currently resurfaced, on average, once every 106 years.

The recommended interval is between 10 and 20.

In some areas, the wait for individual repairs is extraordinary. Stoke-on-Trent has an average repair wait time of 657, or nearly two years for a single pothole to be patched.

In the meantime, the damage grows, and every driver who hits a pothole is taking a risk.

How potholes can damage your car

If you’ve ever hit a pothole at speed, you know the feeling.

The jarring thud, the steering wheel pulling, the sinking suspicion that something expensive just happened.

Sometimes it’s nothing. Sometimes it isn’t.

Tyres and wheels

The most common, and most visible, form of pothole damage.

A sharp impact at the wrong angle can puncture a tyre, cause a sidewall bulge, or blow it out completely. Even a slow puncture from a smaller hit can leave you with a flat at the worst possible moment.

Wheel damage is also common: Bent or cracked alloys are a frequent result of a hard pothole strike, and they’re not cheap to replace.

Suspension and steering

Hit a pothole hard enough and you can knock your wheels out of alignment or damage suspension components – shock absorbers, springs, control arms.

Misalignment affects how the car handles and, left unchecked, accelerates tyre wear unevenly. If your car is pulling to one side or the steering feels loose after a big impact, get it checked sooner rather than later.

Undercarriage and exhaust

Deep potholes – the kind that seem to appear from nowhere on unlit country roads and make you feel like you’re playing real-life Mario Kart as you try to dodge them – can bring the underside of your car into contact with the road surface.

That risks damage to the exhaust system, the oil pan, or other components that aren’t designed to take that kind of impact.

Cosmetic damage

Loose asphalt thrown up by a pothole can chip paintwork or damage bodywork.

On a car lease, that matters, because cosmetic damage that falls outside the BVRLA Fair Wear and Tear guidelines can result in charges when you hand the car back.

And beyond the cost to your car, there’s a safety dimension worth taking seriously.

A sudden impact can affect vehicle control, particularly at higher speeds or when the pothole is hidden under standing water. All road users – drivers, cyclists, pedestrians – are vulnerable to the consequences of poorly maintained roads.

How to report a pothole

Reporting a pothole won’t get it fixed overnight.

But it does matter.

The more reports a council receives about a specific stretch of road, the harder it becomes to deprioritise. And if your car is damaged by a pothole your council knew about and failed to repair, a logged report strengthens any compensation claims you make.

You can report directly to your local council via their website, or use FixMyStreet (a free tool that lets you log road defects quickly, and routes the report to the right authority).

If your car is damaged, keep hold of any receipts for repair work.

Councils reject the majority of compensation claims – according to the RAC, 97% of councils refused more than 90% of claims in 2024 – but a paper trail gives you the best possible chance of a successful outcome.

Photographs of the pothole, your damaged vehicle, and the location are all useful evidence to have.

How to protect yourself and your lease car

Avoiding every pothole isn’t realistic.

On unlit rural roads, in standing water, or on stretches you drive every day without incident – sometimes they’re unavoidable.

But there are practical steps you can take to limit the damage when they do catch you out.

Keep on top of regular maintenance

If you’re regularly driving roads in poor condition, your suspension and steering are absorbing more than they should.

Regular servicing catches developing issues early, before a small knock becomes an expensive repair. It’s also worth checking your tyre pressures more frequently than you might otherwise; correctly inflated tyres are better equipped to absorb impact and less likely to suffer a blowout from a sharp strike.

A maintenance package takes the hassle out of keeping your car in good shape throughout your lease – and means you’re less likely to be caught out by a repair bill you weren’t expecting.

Protect yourself at the end of your lease

End-of-lease charges for damage beyond fair wear and tear can add up.

Pothole-related scuffs, chips, and wheel damage are exactly the kind of thing that gets flagged at inspection, and exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to avoid on our roads right now.

Cosmetic insurance can cover accidental damage to your vehicle during the lease term, meaning any scratches, dents, or kerbed alloys might not cost you anything extra.

If you do pick up any cosmetic damage, get it sorted at least a month before your lease ends – that gives you enough time to arrange the repair and have everything signed off before the car goes back.

Check your breakdown cover

The time to check your breakdown cover is not when you’re stranded on the side of the road with a blown tyre and a queue of traffic behind you.

Many manufacturers include it with new vehicles, and it may also be bundled with your comprehensive insurance or bank account, so it’s worth a quick check before you need it.

Look out for cyclists

Finally, be aware of cyclists around you when road surfaces are poor.

Potholes that a car can absorb can be genuinely dangerous for someone on two wheels. Slow down, give extra space, and stay alert on roads you know are in bad condition.

Potholes aren’t going anywhere.

And until the funding catches up with the backlog, the roads aren’t getting significantly better any time soon.

But knowing what causes them, what damage they can do, and how to protect yourself makes a real difference.