Almost 20,000 potholes in the county could be filled in the coming year after new funding has been announced.

Hertfordshire County Council has been given a £1 million chunk of £50 million which has been distributed to councils across England to help them improve road surfaces.

It comes after the Watford Observer revealed last week that a "catalogue of complaints" about roads in south west Hertfordshire led to an all-party review of the county council's highways service.

The new money is part of the so-called pothole action fund launched by the Department for Transport, which will hand £50m a year to local authorities for road improvements for the next five years.

Watford MP Richard Harrington said: "After periods of sustained poor weather over the last few years, our roads have suffered.

"Potholes are a nightmare for drivers, and are even worse for cyclists, who are at risk of flying off their bikes if they don’t see a pothole coming."

The money comes in addition to the £16.3 million highways maintenance grant from government to the county.

But opposition Liberal Democrats say the £943,000 is nowhere near enough.

They cite the Local Government Association, which has said councils need more than 230 times that to cover the £11.8 billion cost of maintaining roads.

Group leader Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst said: ​"While it is good to get any extra money from the ​G​overnment​, ​this is a ​drop of water in a big ocean of money need​ed ​to repair our roads  - not least after the Government cut the County Council's budget by £23 million more than had been expected.​

​"​£943,000 is nowhere ​near ​enough to fix the problems we have, which is not  made any better by botched repairs on occasions by the county's ​contractors."​

Last year the Observer reported the response to pothole complaints has changed so that now the council sends an inspector from its contractor Ringway to reported faults to determine the nature of the fault.

The council deals with 10,000 potholes a year in Hertfordshire.

Rob Smith, deputy director of environment, said: "Hertfordshire's 3,000 miles of roads are among the busiest in the country, with over five billion vehicle miles travelled every year and this inevitably results in potholes and defects.

"This year we have spent more than £30m on road maintenance and repairs.

"While we welcome these additional funds from the Department for Transport as a step in the right direction, it would have been helpful if traffic levels had been taken in to account in allocating the funding.

"We will now look at how we could most effectively use this money to improve the condition of our roads."

Do you live near a road blighted by potholes? Comment below or email charlotte.ikonen@london.newsquest.co.uk.