Chancellor Rishi Sunak pledged an extra £2.5bn for local road maintenance in the Budget.

Councils will get an extra £500m a year from 2020/21 to 2024/25 through a new potholes fund.

The Treasury said the cash will 'fix up to 50 million potholes ... but will also be available for local authorities to undertake longer-term road resurfacing works to prevent potholes from appearing in the first place'.

Officials said this would lead to a 50% increase in local road maintenance budgets in 2020/21.

The Budget also confirmed the development of 15 local road upgrades across the country.

However, the National Infrastructure Strategy has been delayed until ‘later in the spring'.

Speaking ahead of the announcement, shadow chancellor John McDonnell criticised the Government for ‘shelving the National Infrastructure Strategy in place of a gimmicky grab-bag of projects'.

He said: ‘This rehash of Theresa May's pothole fund is another policy announcement that shows the Tories trying to patch up problems they have created without getting a grip on the underlying state of infrastructure in this country.'