Potholes on motorway a 'death waiting to happen'
Kevin Lister-Stuttard/Iconic MediaLives are being put in danger by potholes on a Lancashire motorway, a senior councillor has claimed.
Azhar Ali said the M65 between Burnley and Colne was "riddled" with defects and drivers were having to swerve around them at high speed.
The Progressive Lancashire opposition group leader on Lancashire County Council has criticised the local authority for the condition of the motorway.
In response, the council said it had prioritised the most urgent repairs on the almost 4,400 miles of highway for which it was responsible.
The vast majority of the motorway network is the responsibility of National Highways – but the six-mile stretch of the M65 between junctions 10 and 14 comes under the county council's control for historical reasons.
Ali told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "People are swerving – and if someone hits [a pothole] at 70mph, or even less, it's going to blow [their] tyres.
"It's a death waiting to happen," he warned.
'Bigger repairs'
A spokesperson for Lancashire County Council said: "Our roads carry over 4.6m journeys a day – and we fix around 3,400 potholes each month.
"Potholes are caused by wet and cold weather – and the freezing conditions early this year mean that our roads have suffered a lot of damage recently. We triage all requests and respond to these in order of priority.
"Our 'managed service model' delivers bigger, longer-lasting repairs, tripling the average fix size – and a single provider [has] replaced multiple contractors, freeing council teams to focus on urgent work and resurfacing."
The Reform UK-run county council maintains nearly all non-motorway routes in Lancashire.
The authority announced late last year that there had been a 42% drop in the number of defects on its roads and pavements in the space of a year.
It said there were 35,514 in the 12 months to September 2025, a drop of about 25,000.
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