A SENIOR councillor has rejected claims by the Labour party that North Yorkshire is one of the worst places in the country for potholes.

A report released by Labour claimed that North Yorkshire County Council faces a bill of more than 400m to fix the road network after two harsh winters.

But Councillor Gareth Dadd, executive member for highways at the council, said the figure was 'nonsense'.

Nationally, Labour has estimated that it would cost more than 5bn to repair all the potholes in England's roads.

Shadow roads minister John Woodcock has accused the Conservatives of lacking a serious long term plan to deal with the issue and blamed government cuts for the problem.

But this claim has been rejected by Coun Dadd who said the Conservative-led county council has received more financial support from the Tories than it ever did from Labour.

He said: "400m is nonsense and not a figure that I would recognise. We estimate that we need about 35m to get the entire road network up to five star standard.

"We have welcomed the 6.6m grant we received from the government for emergency repairs, which was far more than we expected and far more than we ever got from the previous administration."

Labour surveyed 152 local authorities in England and said 40 per cent reported a backlog of road repairs, with North Yorkshire, Devon and Kent the worst affected.

Mr Woodcock said: "Motorists and cyclists are already furious that ministers pretended to give councils extra money to repair potholes when all they've done have is replace a fraction of the 432m they axed from road maintenance budgets.

"Instead of continually patching up knackered road surfaces with a bucket of tar we need a proper strategic plan for local roads which could save taxpayers money a fortune in the long-term."

Responding to the claims, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said: "This Government understands what a problem potholes on our roads can be - that's why we are making available 3.2bn over the next four years for road maintenance.

"Even though we have had to make savings to cut the huge budget deficit that Labour left us, this Government is still providing more cash for road maintenance over the next four years than Labour provided in the previous four years."