A cabinet member put on his hard hat to show how potholes are the hot topic in the council’s road maintenance budget.
Last night’s cabinet meeting backed a plan for spending the £8.8 million of transport funding the government has allocated to Brighton and Hove for the next financial year.
Of this, £5.2 million has to be spent on highway maintenance and £850,000 on pavements.
The remaining money will be spent on active travel measures such as buses and cycle lanes, including £1.4 million for the new Hove seafront cycle lane and £286,000 towards the final phase of Valley Gardens.
The council is also committing £2.2 million from its own budget towards “reactive maintenance” to repair roads, bringing the total transport maintenance budget to £11 million.
A report to the cabinet said: “A combined maintenance approach to reactively address potholes in the short term to make them safe, alongside a longer term planned maintenance approach to avoid potholes is the most efficient use of limited resource.”
It costs approximately £200 per square metre to repair a pothole compared with £10 per square metre to carry out preventative maintenance
The Department for Transport has allocated Brighton and Hove City Council’s transport and maintenance budgets for the next four years.
The budget is due to increase to £9.8 million next year, £10.6 million in 2028-29 and £13.1 million in 2029-30.
Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the council’s cabinet member for transport and city infrastructure, said that the aim was to build on the ongoing work to make local roads smoother and straighter. He described the pothole issue as “one of failure”.
He criticised the former Conservative government for its lack of long-term investment which has affected roads across the entire country but added that residents wanted “action not excuses”.
He said that residents could report potholes and defects on the council’s website and that each road problem would be ranked for risk, with a response within two hours for the most dangerous.
There are three lesser risk categories, with responses within 24 hours, seven days and 28 days for the lowest priority.
He said: “We are coming for a pothole near you. With more, we will do more.”
He also listed the roads resurfaced or patch treated in the past year and scores of roads planned for the next year’s programme.
Wearing his high-vis vest and hard hat, Councillor Muten said: “We are the party of Labour who get things done. Let me say this clearly: I’m not ashamed to put on my hard hat and high-vis jacket.
“I’m proud to stand with the workers who deliver. The contractors, the engineers and the officers who work day and night to keep this city moving. Their work matters, it’s skilled, essential and deserving of respect.”
Spending will also include drop kerbs, new trees and stump removal, as well as bike hire and cycle parking.
The Labour deputy leader of the council Jacob Taylor said: “We’ve got to sort these roads out. At one point, someone said to me ‘you’re filling so many potholes and fixing so many roads, it’s causing a nightmare in the city’.
“But we’ve got to do it and I really commend the work that Councillor Muten is doing and I commend him for putting on his high-vis jacket to go and visit the sites because he should be speaking to our workers and contractors.”
Faker! Impersonating blue colour workers. You aren’t working class me oldie son
The trademark Muten gurn !
What could possibly go wrong?
If potholes are ACTUALLY a priority, why in the council’s transport plan have they only budgeted enough to cover the “maintenance burden” rather than spending money to tackle the £57m road maintenance backlog”. Unless they do that it’s just managed decline and more spin coming from this Labour council.
The Local Transport Plan can be found here: https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s206686/Local%20Transport%20Plan%20Capital%20Programme%202526.pdf. It says the funding is “not enough to resolve the maintenance burden. We estimated there is a backlog of £57m for roads and £39m for footways. To prevent further decline of these assets alone we would need an estimated annual budget of £8.45m”
To make out potholes are a priority, when the ACTUAL budget allocated is only enough to prevent further decline and nowhere near enough to tackle any road maintenance backlog, is not being honest with residents.
This pattern of Labour councillor spin is in overdrive the more desperate they get to cling on to power!!
It’s a fair analysis, I can’t dispute it. Minor omission is the doubling of preventative funding, since 20:1 is a really good ratio. My thoughts are that there’s potentially a long-term strategy there with devolution around the corner, since MCAs typically receive multi-year funding settlements, which would get that extra push. £4m extra would clear the backlog in about 15 years roughly, if my maths is correct.
I noticed you posted last year’s programme. The new one can be found here: https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s212823/Transport%20Capital%20and%20Maintenance%20Programme%202026-27.pdf
Talks about the programme comprehensively, because potholes are only one element!
.uten you will always put on your hi vis and helmet when there is a photo opportunity to show your smiling m7g but that doesn’t clear the shoddy pothole work, fill them in one day back up bigger the next ,you are a total disgrace to the office you are supposed to support.
Muten you will always put on your hi vis and helmet when there is a photo opportunity to show your smiling mug but that doesn’t clear the shoddy pothole work, fill them in one day back up bigger the next ,you are a total disgrace to the office you are supposed to support.
That should start Muten and also your smiling mug.
Sorry predictive txt
Muten you will always put on your hi vis and helmet when there is a photo opportunity to show your smiling mug but that doesn’t clear the shoddy pothole work, fill them in one day back up bigger the next ,you are a total disgrace to the office you are supposed to support.
Muten you will always put on your hi vis and helmet when there is a photo opportunity to show your smiling mug but that doesn’t clear the shoddy pothole work, fill them in one day back up bigger the next ,you are a total disgrace to the office you are supposed to support.
Born and raised in Brighton, Muten has proven to be one of the least competent councillors I’ve seen. He frequently boasts and publicises even the most minor positive developments he is loosely associated with. He embodies the kind of self-promoting, underperforming politician this country does not need.
Sod cycle lanes fix the bloody pot holes.
£1.4m for a cycle lane while motorists (who fund the fund) are stuck with roads that damage cars on a daily basis. All the while that unelected official thinks he’s really damn clever. No Trevor, you’re not.
Cyclists use the pavements anyway
Cosplaying as a worker fools absolutely no one. Give the hard hat and high-vis jacket to someone who actually uses them, and get on with your own job
That’s good to hear. I thought destroying independent shops in Western Rd and displacing commercial traffic into residential side streets was the Labour smash the economy priority.
Will believe it when I see it. Brighton has the worst roads in the country.
Clever Trevor, would probably be more useful as a suitable filler material for the potholes.
There are a number of concerns with the Roads Activity:
Pot holes are filled and in a short space of time they return!
Suburban roads are resurfaced, only to be dug up by the Utilities soon after.
Major toads remainin in a poor state, particularly Dyke Road Avenue, which is a main access to Brighton and Hove, is in very poor condition!
Try driving up Dyke Road and avoiding the constant potholes filled with chewing gum that pops back out within a week. What a hypocrite.
Same old self serving nonsense, plenty of subcontractors knocking about,but not a lot shown for it,,I think its despicable that a councillor has the temerity to put on ppe,and not a clue why?? I would like to know where they get there figures from £ 200 pound a square meter,???? If that’s the case ,,then these subbiesare on a bloody good thing considering the amount of pot holes, I would imagine they are laughing all the way to the bank singing penny’s from heaven,its bodge after bodge keeping the lights green on the councils traffic light system of maintenance what a damm disgrace,someone have a look at Trevor’s hands,he may need “cream”
The Transport Capital and Maintenance Programme 2026-27 references it. https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s212823/Transport%20Capital%20and%20Maintenance%20Programme%202026-27.pdf
I wish someone would expose the scam of the council being massively overcharged for this work, then the repairs carried out intentionally poorly simply because the opportunity to do the work again and charge again is too tempting – and the council remain either oblivious, accepting, or a part of the racket.
So, the upcoming Procurement Act might have some positive effect on it. It’s a bit of a dry subject, but it would be more competition in the tendering process, which would mean more bargaining for councils, and better value for money with contracted work.
Cllr Muten was on BBC Sussex Radio last week assuring listeners that £8m had been said aside for repairing pot holes in Brighton and Hove. He was even praised by other parts of Sussex with less funding for prioritising this. Time to put that money where your mouth is Muten. Plus all the utility companies currently digging up our roads all over the city are not making good afterwards creating extra pot holes. The main Council contractor seems incapable of good and lasting road surfaces, so their contract needs revisiting with urgency. There is a section of Western Road which has been dug up about four times in the last three years, but has all the smoothness of a farm track! Disgusting. We need a proper Clerk of Works holding all contractors and utility companies to account and ensuring value for money and proper roadwork co-ordination. Considering that Transport is one of the Council’s best resourced departments with 275 employees, transport and roads have never been worse in this city in my lifetime. Who Muten thinks gurning into a camera with a high viz on is going to impress is anyone’s guess. The man should resign in disgrace.
The pothole saga should never have lasted this long, poor quality roadworks peeling up after as little as 6 weeks just kind of overpaid lack of quality that should have been stopped 10 years ago. The bulk of roadworks is done by companies whose only customer is the coucils, why don’t we have better control ?? why can’t we take money back for the state of the repairs ??? why can’t the contractors be replaced ??? why not use EU Contractors, they are allowed to compete for the contracts ?? Should be lots more questions asked instead accepting this as normal