Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether repairing potholes is (a) revenue and (b) capital expenditure for local authorities.

The Department for Transport provides local highway authorities with capital funding for local highway maintenance. Local authorities receive revenue funding from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government through the Local Government Finance Settlement.

Capital funded highway maintenance activities are typically structural in nature and may include planned reactive repairs, such as permanent small-scale repairs to roads and pavements. However, capital funding cannot be used to fund the operating costs of a service, or for recurring expenditure such as grass-cutting or other cyclical maintenance activities, or for temporary short-term patching of potholes.