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Labour has warned of a ‘pothole crisis’ across Britain as new figures show spending on road maintenance has been cut by more than a quarter.

Spending on fixing local roads has fallen by 27% in real terms since David Cameron came to power - down from £1.5billion in 2009/10 to £1.1 billion last year.

Labour said the country’s roads face a £12billion maintenance backlog that would take 14 years to fix.

The stats were buried in one of dozens of documents quietly slipped out by the Department for Transport (DfT) on the day Parliament broke up for Easter recess.

Lilian Greenwood, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, said: "After six years of the Conservatives, our local roads are in a truly desperate state.

“These shocking new figures show that over a billion has been cut from maintenance budgets and funding has been reduced overall by almost a third.

(Image: Ben Pruchnie)

“The Tory pothole crisis is creating huge costs and safety risks for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.”

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The figures show a total of £1.2billion has been cut from local authority road spending over the five-year period.

Half of drivers say the condition of roads in their area has deteriorated over the past year.

It comes despite pledges from the Tory Government to spend more on improving Britain’s crumbling road network.

The DfT’s highways maintenance budget has been frozen in real terms for the next five years - meaning a £270million cut once inflation is taken into account.

That more than cancels out the £250million

Ms Greenwood said: “George Osborne promised a ‘roads revolution - but in reality the quality of our roads has severely degraded on his watch.”

Transport Minister Andrew Jones said: "The government is providing a record £6 billion over the next five years to allow councils to fix local roads across England.

"We topped this up with £250million last year specifically to tackle the blight of potholes. This represents an overall funding increase of nearly £400m for local roads maintenance compared to the last parliament."