We are fixing 630 potholes a day, says Reform

Party also says it has made over £330m worth of savings through ‘Doge’ project to cut waste

Reform councils have fixed almost 115,000 potholes since the May elections, the party has said.

It means party’s councils are fixing the equivalent of about 630 potholes a day, The Telegraph has calculated.

Reform UK-led Nottinghamshire County Council has completed 14.5 miles of resurfacing works since the Local elections in May when they took control of the Council. Approximately 17 miles of resurfacing works are planned for the 2025/26 programme.

Nigel Farage, the party leader, had promised that the party’s “Doge” unit – created to emulate Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency in the US – would address the problem of potholes and tackle council waste.

Reform, which shared the figures with The Telegraph, also claimed that it has cut over £330m worth of waste across its councils, including saving £32m in Kent and £23m in Durham after un-declaring a climate emergency.

In Kent, the party claims scrapping the transitioning of a vehicle fleet to electric vehicles will have saved over £7.5m by 2030.

Scrapping net zero in Leicestershire enabled Reform to redirect £2m in real world flooding protection, with £30m invested in schools to create 850 more secondary school places.

In Staffordshire, the party has also saved 63 farms from being sold, and stopped food land from being swapped for net zero projects.

‘Mess of past Tory administrations’

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader and head of “Doge”, said: “Since May, Reform UK councillors have been getting on with the job of cleaning up the mess of past Tory administrations. This is only the start of our plans at local government level. Reform will fix broken Britain.”

It comes after criticism of Kent council emerged last month after a leaked video of a Reform meeting saw Linden Kemkaran, the authority’s leader, telling members to “f---ing suck it up” when they disagreed on big decisions.

With a budget of over £2.5bn, Ms Kemkaran called the council a “shop window” for what Reform could do if it ran the country.

The row prompted comparisons to the Handforth parish council meeting in December 2020, which transformed Jackie Weaver into a fleeting celebrity.

Meanwhile, North Northamptonshire, which has had a Reform majority since May, has approved plans to double council tax on its 511 second homes from April 2027, despite Mr Farage previously calling the levy “madness”.

In May, the Reform leader told the Telegraph: “Whatever the downsides of increased house prices, these people bring a lot of money into these areas.”