CUMBRIA has been crowned the pothole capital of England.

New data shows the area topped the list for the car-damaging road defects after analysis of highway craters and cracks recorded by the public since the start of last year.

The data has been logged on the Fill That Hole website, which is run by Cycling UK, registering the issues before passing them on to the relevant local authorities.

While the reports were mostly made by cyclists, experts say it provides an important snapshot of the state of the UK’s decaying highways for all road users.

For the past 12 months Cumbria amassed 448 pothole complaints, compared to 406 for Hampshire, 399 for Surrey, 384 for Devon, 281 for Gloucestershire and 257 for Shropshire.

Duncan McClure Fisher, founder and CEO of motoring association MotorEasy, said: “This is something that has been getting worse for years, due in part to a lack of investment in the road infrastructure in the UK over decades.

“The government has ploughed more than £1.2billion into repairing potholes since 2010, but it seems that’s still not enough.

“Individual councils are literally pouring millions of pounds into addressing the issue without having great success.

“The sheer number of potholes mean it’s rare to complete a journey without trying to avoid at least one, and they pose a serious threat to your vehicle."

According to figures provided by Cumbria County Council, since April 1 2021, the reported number of potholes in Cumbria is 7,788.

During the same time period, 4,939 (63 per cent) have been repaired.

The total number of reported defects will include duplicates, as some potholes will be reported more than once.

A Cumbria County Council spokesperson said: "Cumbria has the fourth largest road network in England which includes a large proportion of rural roads. The current funding formula used by government favours urban networks particularly where there are large centres of population.

"Cumbria’s road network is an ageing asset which has been affected by extreme weather events in the last few years and with climate change this is likely to continue. We have a maintenance backlog of circa £350m and with reductions in government funding over the last five years we have had to prioritise our funding on our main priority roads and choice of treatments adopting a risk based approach.

"Like all authorities in the country and especially rural counties like here in Cumbria, we continue to lobby Government to allocate more funding for highways infrastructure."