Pothole-riddled roads in Leeds would cost more than £95m to patch up, a survey of councils has found.
The sum was the average that Yorkshire’s councils told the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) they would need to bring their roads to a reasonable condition.
Last year’s flood damage added around £24m to each council’s road repairs bill, the survey also found.
And it will take around 11 years for local authorities to clear their highways maintenance backlogs, despite filling in an average of 18,000 potholes each last year.
The AIA said the responses to its survey revealed “a crumbling road crisis of increasing concern” in England and Wales, where it would cost an estimated £10.5bn to get roads back into a reasonable state of repair.
The cost of filling the countries’ estimated 2.2m potholes came to £113m last year and damage from the extreme rainfall cost £338m.
The AIA has called for longer-term funding for preventative work that would reduce the need for costly repair jobs.
Chairman Alan Mackenzie said: “It’s time to stop the rot.
“The Government needs to make sufficient funding available now that will enable local authorities to get their roads back into a condition that will quickly and directly boost the economy, help businesses and improve local communities.”
His calls came as results of a separate survey by the AA revealed its members had rated Yorkshire’s road surfaces as the worst in the country.
A third of the 23,000 drivers polled by the motoring organisation said the surface condition of their local roads was poor, very poor or terrible.
Only a tenth rated them as very good or excellent, with the lowest ratings in Yorkshire and Scotland.
AA president Edmund King said: “This spring our patrols are telling us that potholes are popping up faster than daffodils. This reflects the effects of very wet and frosty weather on poor road surfaces. Our findings are deeply worrying and show that UK drivers are once again experiencing a bad pothole season after a lull last spring - perhaps with worse to come.”
Referring to the AIA survey, he added: “Ring-fenced finance must be found to plug an increasing gap in highway budgets.”
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