Potholes cost Oxford taxi firm more than £240,000 a year

001 Taxis, which is in St Aldate’s in Oxford city centre has told this newspaper it has spent thousands of pounds on fixing pothole damage for its 500-vehicle fleet, of which 90 are company cars.

In April alone, the business forked out £25,000 on car repairs.

Manager Jay Akhtar says these figures have increased dramatically in the last couple of years due to the state of Oxfordshire’s roads.

Suspension related issues cost a minimum of £15,000 a month, including replacing or fixing shock absorbers, control arms, bushes, and track rod ends.

These figures don’t include its annual £65,000 bill it spends on replacing 1,200 tyres and its £120 MOT charge per car – and that’s if there are no faults.

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001 Taxis in Oxford says it spends more than £240,000 on repairs caused by Oxfordshire potholes (Image: 001 Taxis)

Oxfordshire County Council revealed that between February 20 and April 19, a total of 13,760 potholes were fixed by repair teams with the rest being dragon patcher repairs.

In total, it said 24,330 repairs have been completed while 4,725 are still waiting attention.

But RAC research found Oxfordshire County Council had 488 claims made against it in 2021 and 1,941 in 2024, a 297 per cent increase in three years.

Mr Akhtar says he is being “deprived” of good roads which is doubling his business costs.

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He said: “In my 55 years of life I’ve seen what the roads were like and what they’re like now and  I’m not angry, I’m furious because it’s costing the business money and I can’t change the taxi fare prices.”

Mr Akhtar says he feels “ripped off”, estimating he spends approximately £30,000 a year on taxing his vehicles and £4,000 a year on taxi plate registration.

“The only reason why the suspension gets his so hard is purely because of potholes”, he said.

“For example, on my 1995 car, I only had to change the shocks and springs four years ago.”

He refers to roads he has driven on, comparing them to the current state here.

A pothole on the Southern Bypass (Image: FixMyStreet)

Mr Akhtar said: “I’ve driven on roads near Italy which were sweet as dust. I didn’t hit a pothole for nearly 12 miles.

“Up until now the roads were fine and being built properly as money was being invested into them.

“Now, it makes me sad to say but what’s so great about Great Britain because the people are being deprived.”

He added: “We are struggling but if we don’t do what we need to do, the drivers and passengers will be in dangerous cars.”

Oxfordshire County Council has been contacted for a comment.

The council previously announced declared plans to resurface more than one million square metres of road by late June 2026.

The council has utilised special repair teams, dragon patcher repairs and bobcat patching machines to fix the counties potholes.