COUNCILS spent £56million to fix potholes last year after getting a million reports.
A third of local authorities went over their budgets for the repairs, stats show.
Meanwhile, 80 per cent of drivers’ claims for compensation over damage caused by the road craters were rejected.
Despite this, the total compensation bill since January 2023 was still more than £4million.
Claims are often rejected, partly because councils must agree that the road indentation actually constitutes a pothole.
Channel 4’s Dispatches found a third of councils have no public criteria for pothole repairs, while a slightly larger amount list specific measurements.
In the 12 months to March, the RAC attended 27,000 pothole incidents — a nine per cent rise on the year before.
The motoring body said owners can expect to pay up to £460 if their vehicle needs to get to a garage after hitting a pothole.
RAC’s Rod Dennis added: “We don’t feel the Government has a proper grip on just how bad the situation on our roads really is.”
But the Department for Transport insisted its extra £8.3billion in funding is the “biggest ever increase for local highways maintenance”.
It added: “We’re requiring councils to publish regular reports of which roads they’re resurfacing with the extra money, so taxpayers can see how their money is being spent.”
Meanwhile, drivers have been fined more than £118million for low traffic neighbourhood violations since January 2023.
