'Our roads are Third World standard'

Britian's roads are riddled with holes and have deteriorated to Third World standards, according to motoring organisations.

The country's roads are worse than they have been for 25 years and require more than £7billion repairs. Meanwhile, the number of broken pavements has also peaked, with many regarded as "a danger to pedestrians".

The Government's annual transport survey, published yesterday, has claimed that the overall state of roads and footpaths in England and Wales has improved.

But its survey showed how hundreds of key routes had been named on its danger list for close monitoring.

Almost half of the defects on urban and rural local authority roads and 60 per cent of trunk road problems were caused by ruts in the wheel-tracks of cars, according to the report.

However, the Government denied roads and footpaths were in crisis and claimed it was on track to halt the long-term deterioration by 2004. A spokesman said: "This report shows the number of defects has plateaued. We're providing sufficient money to local authorities to halt the problem."

But John Dawson, AA's director of policy, said: "There's a serious underlying problem here. Can the local authorities, elected on a short-term basis at a political level, actually be trusted to understand the long-term infrastructure problems?"