Hole-y mess: Sutton and Bromley road users are seeing red over the state of their roads
Road users in Bromley and Sutton need to exercise extra care to avoid troublesome pot holes. That’s according to a register of poorly-maintained roads issued over the weekend by the Department for Transport, which has both south London boroughs given a “Red” rating for the condition of their roads.
Croydon, perhaps surprisingly for many cyclists and motorists with experience of the poor state of their local roads, has been given an overall “Amber” rating (with “Green” on the DfT’s spending scorecard).
The red, amber and green ratings for more than 150 highway authorities across England were released last night.
The DfT says that the ratings are based on three areas: the condition of local roads, how much councils are spending on road repairs, and whether they are following best practice in maintaining highways.
“To boost standards, highways authorities currently rated red will receive dedicated support to bring them in line with best practices, backed by £300,000 worth of expert planning and capability assistance,” the DfT said.
LibDem-run Sutton and Tory-controlled Bromley are both given overall “Amber” ratings, but “Red” for road conditions. Their DfT ratings carry a caveat: “The overall rating and best practice and condition scorecards for this local highway authority are based on incomplete road condition data, which has affected these ratings, and how their best practice scorecard was calculated.”
Councillor Nicholas Bennett, Bromley’s cabinet member for transport, highways and road safety, told Inside Croydon: “Unfortunately, Bromley has, for years, received the second smallest government grant in London and for the past nine years has had to repair major roads without funding from the Mayor of London.
“We recognise that the best way to prevent potholes is resurfacing rather than patching and not only are we seeking a new contractor this year, we have dramatically increased the programme for relaying roads using the new grant from the Department of Transport.”
Five other London boroughs were rated “Red” for road conditions: Brent (Labour), Greenwich (Labour), Kingston (Liberal Democrat), Enfield (Labour) and Waltham Forest (Labour).
Transport for London, which is responsible for maintaining the capital’s main roads, received an overall “Amber” rating.
When in a hole…: Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, says the pot hole traffic lights are there to encourage councils to do better on road repairs
Some London councils responded to the ratings by describing the DfT’s findings as “baffling” and saying it was “disappointing that they have published it without showing us their workings out”.
London’s boroughs receive less than 5% of what is spent across the country to fix roads: £24.5million.
The government says it is now providing £300million funding for London councils to fix their roads.
This is part of £7.3billion nationally to deal with what the DfT calls a “pothole plague”, which sees thousands of road users claiming compensation from local authorities for damage done to their vehicles.
In 2025, Transport for London paid £2million in compensation for damage caused by pot holes on its roads.
“For too long drivers have paid the price because our roads were left to deteriorate,” said Heidi Alexander, the transport minister.
“I have heard time and again their frustration on footing the bill because they hit a pothole – money they should never have to spend in the first place.
“We’ve put our money where our mouth is, increasing the funding for local highway authorities with £7.3billion to fix roads and given them the long-term certainty they have been asking for.
“Now it’s over to them to spend the money wisely, and for the first time we are making sure the public can see how well councils are doing in delivering the improvements they want to see in their local area.”
Road safety: the AA’s Edmund King
Alexander says it costs £70 to fill in a pot hole.
Croydon Council, under Tory Mayor Jason Perry, received £1.24million from the government for road repairs in 2025-2026. Bromley was given £1.48million, Lambeth £585,000, Southwark £514,000, Merton £606,000 and Sutton £749,000.
“We welcome this government initiative to hold local highways authorities to account which should help to promote the Pothole Partnership objective of more proactive and permanent repairs,” said Edmund King, the president of the AA and founding member of the Pothole Partnership.
According to King, the top demand of 96% of AA members is fixing potholes.
And Caroline Julian, of British Cycling, said: “For cyclists, potholes are far more than an annoyance. One unexpected impact can cause a serious crash, life-changing injury or a fatality.
“Safe riding depends on safe roads, and a smooth, well-maintained surface isn’t a luxury for cyclists, it’s essential for their safety.”
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
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I don’t see pot holes being filled on my travels in Croydon.
Transport minister, Heidi “Alexander says it costs £70 to fill in a pot hole.
But the quality of the repair varies enormously. The £70 repairs (by contractors paid by the number of potholes they “fix”) are exactly what they look like, a dollop of tar dropped in the pothole with a token gesture at smoothing over the surface, but not giving it any time to set/harden before they rush off to the next one.
These (temporary) “repairs” will sink as soon as a bus or HGV drives over it, and then the varying but cold temperatures in winter, result in “freeze-thaw action”, which breaks up the pothole “repair” and within a week or two it is at least as bad as it was before !
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