The potholes.co.uk website has warned that potholes are not only getting deeper but are also becoming more widespread on main roads following the use of cheaper materials to surface and fix roads over the last 10-15 years.

The website, run by Warranty Direct, points to repairs on the M32 near Bristol last week and roadworks scheduled for next week for a half-mile section of the M6 at Garstang, both of which are down to potholes.

It adds that the problem is to be exacerbated by a lack of funding, with the Department for Transport to reduce budgets for councils by £442m over the five years of the Comprehensive Spending Review, leaving authorities £164m worse off by 2014/15.

Potholes.co.uk says it has seen a sharp spike in the number of visitors reporting road defects, with the figure having more than doubled since the start of December 2012 compared with the same period a year earlier.

Warranty Direct’s managing director, Duncan McClure Fisher, said: ‘The pothole epidemic is the direct result of years of under-investment in our roads by the Government. Temporary fixes have just escalated the problem over the years and our highways have now got more holes than Swiss cheese.

‘Unless more permanent repair materials and methods are adopted immediately, Britain may never again be able to get through a winter without having to contend with a Third World road network.’