Leeds council spent the most on-road repairs last year, costing £20 million

Figures revealed via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request found the earnings were the most of any city council.

The spending on road repairs by Leeds City Council totalled £20,941,900.

Highways work/maintenance attributed to a part of this spend at £3,094,873.

The budget for Leeds council for 20/21 was £21,803,400 which will be slightly lower in 21/22 (£21,669,663).

Car Lease Special Offers (CLSO) asked councils to state how much they have spent fixing their roads in the last full financial year (20/21), which revealed the top 10 highest spenders regarding road issues.

Leeds' total saw them take top spot by a considerable margin some way clear of Stoke-on-Trent in second place, with a spend of £15.2m.

Over half of this money was spent covering road resurfacing costs (£8.4m).

Bradford took third place in the biggest spenders list, making the top three a Yorkshire double.

Bradford council spent £13,798,658 on road-related issues in 2020/21, including taking their place as the top financers on potholes and road repairs.

CLSO also looked at the other end of the scale, and uncovered which councils have spent the least in the last financial year (20/21):

Coventry - £1,247,713

Peterborough - £1,286,269

Warrington - £1,642,370

Coventry had the lowest overall spend of all cities and towns, with a spend of £1,247,713. This is just 5 per cent of what Leeds spent in the same financial year.

This would suggest that there was a much lower need for reactive repairs in the Coventry area when compared to other major cities.

Also below the £2million mark was Peterborough at £1,286,269. While highways work and maintenance was the biggest spend in Peterborough (£725,419), it doesn’t come close to other cities such as Bolton which spent a huge £4,623,000 on the same category of work.

Warrington council is the third-lowest spender at £1,642,370. Warrington council spent just over £1m (£1,064,280) on resurfacing costs and £578,090 on street lighting.

The FOI requests were sent to 47 local councils, as well as 33 London Boroughs, requesting information on the amount of money spent on road issues including potholes, traffic lights, road resurfacing and highway maintenance for the most recent full 12-month financial period, covering April 2020 to April 2021.

Not all of the councils replied fully to the FOI request.

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