Brighton & Hove gets £1.4m from the government for roads and pavements

The Department for Transport has given Brighton & Hove City Council^1,2,4 just over £1.4m to spend on resurfacing roads, fixing potholes and improving pavements. The Labour-run council said the award recognises work already under way and its Local Highways Maintenance Transparency Report, which sets out the state of the city’s roads and the plan to improve them.

The catch: the money was already built into this year’s maintenance plan, so it isn’t extra on top.

“Residents are seeing a visible improvement in the condition of our roads, with treatment, resurfacing and repair programmes taking place across the city,” said Councillor Trevor Muten, cabinet member for transport and city infrastructure.

The council is spending £8.8m on roads and pavements in 2026/27. Almost £4m goes on improving roads and £2.2m on immediate repairs such as potholes. Pavements get over £1m, with another £200,000 for accessibility work such as dropped kerbs.

The report lists this year’s planned work, which includes 7 km of resurfacing, 11 km of preventative micro asphalt treatment and the restoration of 15 to 20 historic lamp columns along Brighton seafront. The council estimates it repaired 8,328 potholes in 2025/26. By 2027/28 it intends to double the money it puts into preventative maintenance.

Recent headlines have said the city has the “worst roads in England”. In a column for the Argus³, Muten said those claims rest on a single measure, the condition of A-roads. The council switched to a more detailed survey method in 2023/24, and its report says the rise in roads rated red since then reflects that change “rather than a significant deterioration in network condition”. Using the older SCANNER method, Muten wrote, around 8% of the city’s A-roads would need structural repair. He also wrote: “We know some roads need work.”

The council’s online reporting tool lets you pin a pothole on a map and upload photos. In winter it can get around 200 reports a day. It can’t reply to each one, but says every report is reviewed.