Reports of potholes in Warwickshire have more than trebled - but council leader says repairs are up nearly 50 per cent
Reports of potholes in Warwickshire have more than trebled this year after a wet winter - but the leader of Warwickshire County Council says repairs are up by nearly 50 per cent.
According to figures obtained by Tyre company Protyre Autocare, a total of 6,798 pothole reports were made to Warwickshire County Council in January and February, compared to 2,033 during the same months in 2025.
There were 2,758 pothole reports made to the local authority in January and 4,040 in February, compared to 859 and 1,174 in January and February 2025.
Despite these figures, Cllr George Finch (Reform), leader of Warwickshire County Council, said repairs to potholes had increased.
On his social media post he said: “Last May, the people of Warwickshire voted for a party of action, delivery and change.
“Less than a year on, we are proving that vote was well placed.
“Pothole repairs across Warwickshire are up by nearly 50 per cent under Reform. A fantastic achievement.”
The post was accompanied by a graphic which claimed that in the period from May 2025 to March 2026 12,802 pothole repairs were made.
This was compared to the 8,576 repairs made under the previous Conservative-led county council in the period of May 2024 to March 2025.
However, a few days prior to this post, Rachel Taylor, Labour MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, took to social media to say the ‘spending on tackling potholes had collapsed’ in her area.
The MP said she had obtained figures through a Freedom of Information request.
She said: "I've uncovered shocking figures showing that Warwickshire County Council's spending on tackling potholes in our area has collapsed by more than 40 per cent since Reform UK took over last year – despite the Labour government increasing Warwickshire's potholes budget by 40 per cent.
“I've written to Council Leader George Finch to demand an explanation, and action.”
In the letter sent to Cllr Finch, the Labour MP said: “As you know last year, the Labour government gave your council more than £7million in additional funding to tackle potholes, a 40 per cent increase to Warwickshire’s pothole budget.
"I am therefore appalled to have discovered that despite that huge boost in funding, spending on tackling potholes has fallen by 11 per cent across the county sine Reform UK took over.
"Even more shockingly, spending on pothole repairs has fallen by 39 per cent in Nuneaton and Bedworth and by a staggering 51 per cent in North Warwickshire.”
Responding to the social media post and the letter, Cllr Finch said the North Warwickshire and Bedworth MP had ‘incomplete data on a district and borough level’ from her Freedom of Information request.
He went on to say that the Labour funding referred to in Rachel Taylor’s letter came with “strict strings attached, strings that actively penalise councils for the very reactive pothole-filling you are now demanding we do more of.”
Following Cllr Finch’s rebuttal, the North Warwickshire and Bedworth MP went on to create a petition calling on Reform UK to reverse the cut in pothole spending in Warwickshire.