Alarming new figures lay bare the shocking maintenance record of roads in Milton Keynes

Statistics show that only 7.4 miles of roads in the city were fully resurfaced during that period, compared to 16.3 miles five years before.

A further 6.2 miles were surface dressed (where roads are sprayed with a tar-like substance) before stone chippings are spread over the top and rolled in - which can extend a road's lifetime by 10 years.

In 2017-18, 28.4 miles of roads were resurfaced or dressed in the area.

Across England, just 1,123 miles of roads were resurfaced in 2021-22. This is a 29 per cent fall on the 1,588 miles in 2017-18.

Similarly, surface dressing has fallen by 34 per cent over the same period.

In the Spring Budget in March, the Government announced an extra £200 million would be invested in repairing England's potholes in 2023-24.

Of this, £1.1 million will be given to Milton Keynes.

But the RAC has urged the Government to increase investment in road protection, arguing the pothole problem is caused by the worsening state of our roads.

RAC spokesperson Simon Williams said: “These figures paint an incredibly stark picture of road maintenance in England and confirm our worst fears about the overall decline in the state of the country’s roads.

“While the Government has made more money available to authorities to fill potholes, it’s the general reduction in road improvement work that’s causing potholes to appear in the first place.

“We encourage local authorities to take a more preventative approach to maintenance and we also continue to call on the Government to increase funding for councils, not least because England’s major roads receive seven times what local roads are given, despite the fact there are seven times more miles of minor roads.”

The Department for Transport said: “It’s for local authorities to maintain their highways, and to help them do that we’re investing more than £5 billion from 2020 to 2025, with an extra £200 million announced at the Budget in March, to resurface roads up and down the country.

“We’ve also brought in new rules to clamp down on utility companies leaving potholes behind after carrying out street works.”