More than 211,000 potholes have been reported on New Zealand state highways over the past five years – with a quarter of them being in 2022.

The overwhelming majority were in Waikato, ahead of Canterbury,
Northland, Taranaki, Gisborne and Bay of Plenty.

In recent months, motorists countrywide have complained about the state of the roads and a Rotorua-based engineer believed that “won’t change anytime soon”.

The Bay of Plenty Times requested the number of potholes repaired by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency but that was not recorded. The data instead showed the number of potholes attended to.

More than a fifth of the 211,747 potholes repaired between 2018 and 2022 were in Waikato (42,583) and it had more than 20,000 more repairs than Canterbury (22,259).

National Party transport spokesman Simeon Brown said motorists countrywide were saying the roads were in “the worst state” ever.

“This is evidenced by the record number of potholes which peppered our highways last year,” Brown said.

“Labour has unfortunately wasted the last six years focusing on phantom projects like Auckland Light Rail and a cycle bridge across the Auckland Harbour, rather than investing in the maintenance that is needed on our roads.

“National will axe Labour’s $30 billion Auckland Light Rail project and ensure that the National Land Transport Fund is focused on building and maintaining our roads so we can get on top of the pothole crisis.”

A spokesperson from Acting Transport Minister Kieran McAnulty’s office said the Government was focused on developing and maintaining “a high-quality transport system”.

“That’s why in 2022 Waka Kotahi repaired 54,196 potholes.

“The previous Government froze road maintenance spending, which is why we’ve boosted it by nearly 50 per cent to help bring our roads back up to scratch.

“When we came into government, Waka Kotahi advised that more investment in the maintenance of the state highway network was crucial as, despite an almost 10 per cent increase in the size of the network and a 12 per cent increase in costs, funding was flatlined from 2009 to 2017.”

There were 16,854 potholes attended to in Bay of Plenty over the five-year period, with 5219 of those on State Highway 2.

In May, Rotorua-based Scorpro Engineering managing director Eric King said he had “never been so busy” repairing between 50 and 60 wheels in one week after recent bad weather.

King, for this article, said potholes were still creating plenty of problems with eight wheels getting repaired at the time.

In his opinion, the problem “won’t change anytime soon”, with the quality of roading “leaving a lot to be desired”.

Low-profile wheels were “particularly affected… I very seldom ever get a wheel of a vehicle with normal-profile tyres.”

Tauranga man Michael Kelly forked out $280 to replace a tyre that “blew out” after driving over a “massive” pothole on Welcome Bay Rd last month.

He believed local roads were worse than state highways.

“They seem to look after them pretty well. It’s more all your side streets.

“[The Tauranga City Council] try to do their best – there’s a lot to deal with but instead of patches of hot mix I think it would be wise, in my opinion, to redo the likes of Welcome Bay Rd.

“It has always been terrible, and I think it always will be, but it’s a big job diverting the traffic so you can understand the ideology of whacking a bit of hot mix in there.”

In January, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency regional maintenance and operations manager Rob Campbell said there had been more potholes “than we’ve ever seen” on state highways following months of wet weather.

Despite the weather, Waka Kotahi completed 83 per cent of its maintenance programme in Bay of Plenty.

It needed to complete 164km of chip seal maintenance, 6.2km of asphalt, 6.3km of rehab and 3.3km of safety-related, skid-resistant sealing.

Waka Kotahi Bay of Plenty system manager Roger Brady said in a statement that as soon as maintenance contractors were advised of potholes, they were sent to carry out repairs, but wet weather kept crews busy with other “priority incidents” such as slips, fallen trees and flooding.

Brady said trouble spots in the eastern Bay of Plenty were on SH5, SH30 Tikitere, SH36 Ngongotahā, SH34 Kawerau and SH2 Matatā.

In the west, potholes appeared on SH2 Te Puna, SH29 Lower Kaimai, SH29A Maungatapu, SH2 Hewletts Rd and around Mount Maunganui.

“Waka Kotahi has a duty of care to maintain the network to an appropriate level, but by their nature, roads deteriorate over time and there will be issues that appear.

“It is not possible to maintain the entire 11,000km of state highway in a defect-free condition and due to this we strongly encourage all motorists to have insurance cover and to drive to the conditions.

“We also recommend drivers fit their vehicles with the appropriate tyres, given the majority of damage is to vehicles with low-profile tyres.”

Waka Kotahi senior manager of maintenance and operations Wayne Oldfield said in a statement the agency did not record how many individual potholes were repaired.

This was because multiple ones could have been repaired at “each attendance” but the number was a “fair representation”.

Road construction was generally standardised across New Zealand with most built using granular materials from quarries and surfaced with chip seal or asphaltic concrete (hot mix).

Because of New Zealand’s geomorphology, the construction and maintenance of most state highways relied on the use of flexible pavement construction and surfacing of chip seal.

Oldfield said cost was also a factor as asphalt was more expensive than chip seal.

“We tend to use chip seal on long straight sections of state highways and those that have lower volumes of traffic.

“Asphalt tends to be used on tight corners, at intersections or high-volume sections of road such as in urban areas, where the stress factors related to vehicle movements are increased.”

The average cost of replacement works per lane kilometre for the 2022/23 construction season was estimated at $33,813.

Oldfield said there were variances in construction so there was not a consistent national rate for the work but to ensure the road pavement was protected and to extend the life of the pavement, resurfacing was undertaken at more frequent intervals.

The cost and lifespan of road surfacing materials varied and the cost had “substantially increased” in recent years.

Oldfield said the lifespan of materials depended on several factors, including the environment of the road and the impact of severe weather.

Luke Kirkness is an assistant news director for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post covering general news. He previously worked at the NZ Herald for three years, mainly as a consumer affairs reporter. He won Student Journalist of the Year in 2019 at the Voyager Media Awards.