What's Changed?
The Department for Transport has set out new requirements for how local highway authorities (LHAs) must account for and spend their roads maintenance funding. Announced on 14 April 2026, the measures are designed to ensure that record government investment reaches roads — and stays there.
Under the new rules, councils that fail to demonstrate they are maintaining roads effectively could lose around a third of their £1.6 billion annual allocation for the following year. In total, £525 million is being held back across England, released only when authorities can prove they are performing.
What Councils Must Now Do
To access the withheld funding, local highway authorities must meet a set of clear requirements:
Compliance Requirements for Local Highway Authorities
The Red, Amber, Green Rating System
These new rules build on the government's recently introduced RAG rating system, which has graded all 154 local highway authorities across England based on road condition and how effectively they are spending existing government funding. A public-facing map shows residents how their council is performing.
What Your Rating Means
Multi-Year Funding: Planning Certainty at Last
Alongside the new accountability measures, the government has confirmed multi-year funding settlements for local highway authorities — a long-standing ask from the sector. Councils will now have five-year visibility on their roads funding, enabling proper planned maintenance programmes rather than short-term, reactive spend.
This is significant for highways teams: long-term certainty allows for better procurement, workforce planning, and the kind of preventative maintenance that stops potholes forming in the first place — rather than patching them once they become a hazard.
"Potholes aren't just an inconvenience — they cost drivers hundreds, if not more, every time they cause damage to a vehicle. Fixing our roads is one of the most impactful things we can do to reduce the cost of owning and driving a car and we're making sure every pound goes straight into doing exactly that."Simon Lightwood MP — Roads and Buses Minister, Department for Transport
What This Means in Practice
For highways teams and local authority transport leads, these changes are more than a compliance exercise. They signal a shift in how government expects councils to manage their network — with transparency, planning rigour and professional standards all under scrutiny.
The RAG rating system is already public-facing, which means performance is visible to residents and councillors alike. For authorities rated amber or red, the pressure to demonstrate improvement is now directly tied to financial consequences.
The good news: councils that have already invested in proper asset management systems, highways workforce training and long-term maintenance planning are well-positioned to meet these new requirements. For those that haven't, the two-year support packages for red-rated authorities provide a structured pathway.
