Potholes: Fife’s roads ‘left to crumble’ as repair bill soars to over £100m

The data was released as part of a Freedom of Information request that went to all local authorities across Scotland, and the results showed a massive rise in the amount of money needed to tackle the state of Scotland’s roads as councils battle with limited funds and a huge repairs backlog.

The bill has rocketed by almost a third from £1.8bn in 2022, and the biggest rise came in Midlothian where the potential bill soared almost 37 per cent from £27.2 m to more than £37.2m. Fife was close behind with a 29 per cent rise, taking its overall bill up to £100m.

Now Alex Rowley MSP for Mid-Fife and Scotland has blamed the Scottish Government for “letting Fife’s roads crumble” as the extent of the backlog was revealed in the data.

The Freedom of Information request revealed that the current estimated cost of the repair backlog for local roads in Scotland has risen to over £2,56billion, despite four local authorities not providing the requested data. Fife’s estimated cost of the repair backlog went up to £100,329,000 - a rise of £22,729,000 since 2022.

Mr Rowley pointed to years of “brutal” cuts to council budgets which he said have hit non-ringfenced areas such as transport particularly hard.

He said: “Under the SNP, Scotland’s roads have been left to crumble and drivers are paying the price. The cost for fixing the backlog of repairs in Fife has increased by almost £23 million and now sits at a staggering £100 million. Councils are struggling with massive levels of underfunding from the Scottish Government and the continued hollowing out council budgets is completely unacceptable.

“My office gets regular contact from constituents regarding the state of roads and when I raise this with Ministers they point the finger at councils but fail to acknowledge they have cut the council budgets to the bone. I am urging Ministers to work with councils to develop a funded approach to fixing our broken roads infrastructure.”Motorists can report potholes in Fife to www.fife.gov.uk/services/form-pages/report-a-road-or-pavement-fault or call 03451 55 00 11.

Mr Rowley added: “It is much more difficult to claim compensation for a pothole causing damage if it has not already been reported as local authorities can claim they were unaware of the issue.”