REPAIRING the pothole-ridden main road on Barrow Island will cost £1m, The Mail can reveal.

Motorists and residents have highlighted the extensive potholes on Bridge Road on Barrow Island and have called for BAE Systems to take responsibility for the state of the road.

One motorist said: "When I was driving down Bridge Road I thought I’d landed on the moon.

"Who’s to blame?

"BAE's heavy loads or the council?"

Cumbria County Council's highways team has carried out patch repairs in Bridge Road in the last two weeks but it is estimated that to completely resurface the road between the roundabout at Michaelson Road and Jubilee Bridge would cost £1m.

The Mail understands that in the 1990s BAE Systems agreed to carry out repairs periodically given the shipyard's use of the road.

Regular heavy load movements within the footprint of the shipyard place significant pressure on the road leading to deterioration of the surface.

BAE declined to comment when approached.

Councillor Keith Little, Cumbria County Council's cabinet member for roads, said: "Cumbria has the fourth largest road network in England which includes a large proportion of rural roads.

"The current funding formula used by government favours urban networks particularly where there are large centres of population.

"Cumbria’s road network is an ageing asset which has been affected by extreme weather events in the last few years and with climate change this is likely to continue.

"We have a maintenance backlog of circa £350m and with reductions in government funding over the last five years we have had to prioritise our funding on our main priority roads and choice of treatments adopting a risk based approach.

"Like all authorities in the country and especially rural counties like here in Cumbria, we continue to lobby the government to allocate more funding for highways infrastructure.

"This year’s funding formula sees Cumbria receive approximately £23,620 of road funding per mile, whilst councils in Greater London receive an average of more than £62,000 per mile."