A council has 160 roads on its resurfacing ‘to do’ list, but only has enough money to finish 10 this year.

Trafford Council has set aside £4 million in its 2020-21 budget to fix the borough’s roads.

According to council officers, this is enough to repair just over six per cent of the roads that have potholes or other damage along their route.

Coun Michael Welton, Green Party representative for Altrincham ward, said he had been told about the figures by council officers.

He added: “We’ll see if there’s any extra pothole funding in the national budget shortly.”

In a string of complaints, more residents launched small claims against Trafford Council last year for damage done to their cars as a result of unrepaired, council-maintained roads than the year before.

Tony Morris, who lives in Urmston, is among those complaining to the council about damage to their cars.

After hitting three potholes along Irlam Road in Flixton, Tony had to replace the 19-inch tyres on his Mercedes.

He said: “I ended up replacing all four tyres to match on the cars two axles. In total I have spent and have receipts for £280, we went for budget tyres as well.”

Tony is currently raising a complaint against the council and hopes to get a solution that way.

Another driver, Rebecca Sutherland-Pownhall, posted an image online of the tyre on her Toyota, which was completely blown out after hitting a pothole on Davyhulme Road in Urmston.

Within a 24-hour period, two separate people reported tyre blowouts on a Facebook group after hitting the same pothole on this road.

Pictures show the damage to his car and the potholes along just a half-mile stretch of Irlam Road in Flixton that allegedly caused it.

At a meeting in November 2019, council officers blamed a particularly “bad winter” in 2018-19 for the state of the area’s highways.

The number of payouts Trafford Council made for damage and injuries caused by unrepaired roads and footpaths also went up last year.

The authority resolved 576 highways-related claims in the financial year 2018-19, but 429 new ones were received – an increase of 147 new cases from the year before.

In 2018-19, the council paid out funds for 125 successful insurance claims as a result of its failures to repair or inspect roads and footpaths across the borough – up from just 29 payouts the year before.

A total of 94 of those successful claims were for the council’s failure to repair its roads; up from just 12 in 2017-18.

Official council documents stated: “The reasons for this are varied but mainly relate to an increase in defects and claims following the bad winter in 2018; this had an adverse impact on the condition of the highway and put pressure on achieving the repair time-scales.

“This is despite significant levels of investment in the highway network in recent years and work continues to ensure the focus of this investment has the biggest impact.”

A spokesperson for Trafford Council said: “Our Highways Asset Management Plan enables us to develop maintenance lists that are based on the condition and hierarchy of the road.

“This year’s budget has allocated more than £4m to ensure we can resurface the roads that are in the greatest need of repair.

“We also continue to monitor the state of roads in our borough to identify any emergency repair works that need to take place.”