Transport Secretary’s automobile towed away as she falls sufferer to UK’s horror potholes
Heidi Alexander insisted Labour was giving councils record sums to tackle potholes but many are yet to spend it properly and she has first hand experience of the problem
Heidi Alexander took on the role in November 2024(Image: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The transport secretary’s car was taken off the road – after she hit a huge pothole.
Heidi Alexander’s mini cooper was towed after hitting a “crater worthy of the moon”, she said. Her green motor was hoisted on to an AA recovery truck last month on the B4437 outside Burford in Oxfordshire as she drove back from a Labour fundraiser.
It comes after we revealed shock figures show damage to the nations cars caused by potholes have reached record levels. Ms Alexander insisted the government was giving councils record sums to tackle potholes, but said many are yet to spend it properly.
And she slammed local councils, including the Lib Dem-run authority where her accident happened, as she admitted too many drivers are affected by the crisis on Britain’s broken roads.
She told The Sun: “I joked to my husband that I thought that the astronauts on Artemis II might have seen a similar-size crater when they were slingshotting around the Moon last week.”
Ms Alexander, who was driving back to her Swindon South constituency at the time, said her ordeal was an expensive inconvenience, but admitted: “I think that’s the experience of far too many people in the country at the moment.”
And she said it highlighted why she made it her “absolute priority to secure decent investment in our roads” when she took the government job in November 2024.
Industry figures show just Just 51% of roads in the UK are in good condition and some are only fully resurfaced once every 97 years.
under new rules unveiled this week, councils risk losing up to a third of their pothole funding if they fail to prove they are fixing roads.
Ms Alexander added: “I expect local councils will start to feel the wrath of their own public if they’re not seeing progress.”
Your Daily Star previously told how statistics show one insurance company settled more pothole payouts in January than it did in the last six months of last year.
Data released by Tesco Insurance show wheels accounted for the greatest proportion of pothole damage claims in January, just as they did throughout 2025. But bumpers, brakes, suspension systems and even a panoramic roof were also affected.
And experts fear the pothole problem on UK roads could worsen further. Alex Cross, of Tesco Insurance, said: “It’s no secret that the UK’s roads are suffering badly.
“But it’s telling from our figures for January 2026 that pothole damage could reach its worst levels yet. Pothole claims in the first month of the year represented 4.1% of all single vehicle accident claims we received, the highest ever recorded at Tesco Insurance.”
Ms Alexander previously said: “Councils that fail to show they’re fixing roads properly now risk losing up to 25% of that funding. This isn’t a blank cheque, it’s money tied to results, and councils that don’t deliver will lose cash if they can’t prove their performance.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.
