UK Funding

England

National Highways is responsible for the country’s 4,300 miles of motorways and major A roads, known as the strategic road network (SRN). It will receive £27.4 billion from the government between April 2020 to March 2025 for operations, maintenance, renewals and enhancements.

Local roads, which account for 173,934 miles of the network in England (including London), are manged by the relevant local authority. Funding comes from range of sources, including the Department for Transport (DfT), the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Environment Agency grants and regional growth funding, as well as local authorities’ own sources.

The October 2021 Spending Review committed over £2.7 billion in highways maintenance from DfT to local authorities (in England, excluding London and the 8 largest city regions) between the 2022 and 2025 tax years. This figure includes the remainder of the £500 million a year Pothole Fund announced in 2020, £500m Highways Maintenance Block (HMB) needs element, a £125m HMB incentive element and £260m Integrated Transport Block funding. £4.2 billion additional funding for local transport networks is available to the 8 largest city regions (West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the North East, the Tees Valley, West Yorkshire, Sheffield City Region and the West of England around Bristol and Bath) until 2027 from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS).

In October 2023 the then Conservative Government pledged an additional £8.3 billion in capital funding for local authorities to spend on road maintenance between late 2023 and March 2034. This funding formed part of the Network North plan which was redirected funds from the cancellation of the northern section of HS2. It is not yet clear if the Labour Government elected in July 2024 will honour this commitment however, newly appointed Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander, described the previous administration’s pledge as “fantasy money” in a speech made in February 2025. 

In the Autumn Budget 2024, the Chancellor announced an additional £500 million for highway maintenance in the 2025/26 financial year. This was followed by an announcement from the DfT in December 2024, confirming £1.6 billion for local road maintenance in 2025/26, which included the additional £500 million. However, this came with a planned incentive system whereby 25% of the £500m uplift would be released to local authorities based on meeting certain criteria, which have yet to be confirmed.

Previously, analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) set out that spending on local road repairs in the UK has been reduced by more than nearly all other OECD countries over almost two decades.

A Government Spending Review is currently underway by HM Treasury covering all Government expenditure for the period 2026-2031spending. In its submission to this review the AIA called for “Adequate, sustained, targeted and ringfenced funding for local roads over longer defined investment periods to allow local authorities to proactively carry out the right maintenance at the right time to the greatest benefit of all road users, rather than just having enough money to address immediate/urgent repairs. This would deliver a more resilient network and better value for taxpayers, while providing local roads that are safe, keep people connected and support economic growth while also cutting carbon emissions.”

London

In 2018 the UK Government withdrew annual funding to Transport for London (TfL) which has meant that London boroughs have not received any support for the maintenance of their principal routes since. There are now several competitive grants available for London boroughs to bid for from TfL, including Local Implementation Plans (LIP) and the Liveable Neighbourhoods scheme which can be allocated to road maintenance.

In the last two years London Boroughs have received some direct funding from DfT via the Network North allocation, announced in October 2023 under the previous government.

Predominantly local road maintenance is now funded by London borough’s own sources, which include council reserves, a share of business rates, borrowing and fines, as well as developer contributions (e.g. Section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy).

London boroughs do not currently receive any funding for highway maintenance from TfL raised via the expanded ULEZ scheme.

Other devolved regions

The UK government provides a block grant to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish governments to cover all devolved issues, which include highways and transport.

Wales

The Welsh Government is responsible for the maintenance, operation and management of over 75 miles of motorways and over 1,000 miles of trunk roads and works with two trunk road agents – SWTRA in south Wales and NMWTRA in north and mid Wales. It also allocates funds to Welsh local authorities for the maintenance of almost 20,000 miles of local roads.

The Welsh Government receives a block grant from the UK Government which forms the basis of its overall budget along with monies raised from devolved taxes, such as business rates and council taxes as well as limited amounts of borrowing.

From this, local authorities receive the Revenue Support Grant (RSG), which is a non-ring-fenced funding stream for allocation across all core local services, including road maintenance.

In addition, Welsh local authorities can bid for competitive grants provided by the Welsh Government, such as the Resilient Roads Fund and the Local Transport Fund, which provide targeted support for climate resilience and infrastructure improvements.

Local authorities also generate their own revenue through sources such as parking fines and borrowing, which can help fund road maintenance.

Scotland

Scotland has a similar structure to Wales: Transport Scotland maintains 2,430 miles of motorways and key trunk routes while Scottish local authorities are responsible for the maintenance and operation of the remaining 34,561 miles of the local road network.

The majority of local authorities’ funding comes from the Scottish Government, which includes monies from the UK Government block grant, in the form of a General Revenue Grant (GRG), in addition to non-domestic rates, service income and council tax.

Further information: Audit Scotland: Maintaining Scotland’s roads

Northern Ireland

As with other devolved regions, the UK Government allocates a block grant to the Northern Ireland Executive, which is then assigned to various departments, including the Department for Infrastructure (DfI).

In Northern Ireland, local road maintenance is centrally funded through the DfI, rather than by individual local authorities, and DfI Roads, a business unit within the DfI, is responsible for the maintenance and management of over 15,500 miles of public roads.

Further information: Review of the structural maintenance funding requirements for the Department for Infrastructure

More information on the UK road network can be found on RoadFile, the AIA supported hub for road-related statistics.