MILLIONS more will be spent on fixing crumbling roads – but angry residents and drivers say the cash will only tackle the tip of the iceberg.

The cash from central government will go towards filling in potholes and repairing damage from the “Beast from the East”.

But furious motorists and councillors say the extra funding is not enough, and have called for millions more to be pumped into the county.

The government says it will give Hampshire County Council an extra £3m, while Southampton City Council will receive nearly £200,000.

Leader of Southampton Conservatives, Councillor Jeremy Moulton, said: “The state of the roads is appalling, particularly in Freemantle which Labour has neglected for years.”

But city transport chief Cllr Jacqui Rayment said an extra £8m has been set aside this year, bringing the total for road repairs up to £13m – and that “any extra money is welcome”.

Meanwhile councillor Rob Humby, executive member for environment and transport at Hampshire County Council, said: “With our budgets already under pressure, we estimate we would need around three times as much as we have been allocated to restore the roads to the condition they were in before the snow and ice – and, following years of reduced council funding and rising demand, that was far from ideal.

“For some years in Hampshire we have taken the asset management approach now promoted by the government, using money for highways maintenance in the most effective and efficient way.

“We’ve had to put an extra £10 million each year from local money to do this, making the roads more resilient to the impact of severe weather.

“One-off funding is welcome, but it’s not going to solve the long-term problem of deteriorating local roads.”

Cllr Rayment said: “Due to the recent adverse weather conditions some road surfaces have deteriorated.

“We are asking residents to report potholes via our website and we will make the repairs as soon as possible.

“Last year, we repaired a total of 3,123 potholes in the city.

“We always welcome government money which helps us to do this work, although it is never enough to keep up with the decline.

“The Labour council has invested millions of pounds into the repair of potholes and the road programme over the past three years, as part of our overall highway spending.”

Resident Peter Connell said of a recent bus trip to John Lewis: “On the inside lane it just goes ‘bang-bang-bang’.

“I took the trip into Southampton and the inside lanes of The Avenue were just as bad.”

Leader of Hampshire County Council Roy Perry said extra teams of ‘pothole busters’ have been deployed.

He said: “Safety comes first – which is why we have extra gangs out on the ground, as soon as possible after the snow and cold weather, to start tackling potholes on our roads.

“Hampshire Highways gangs are using pre-prepared material, which doesn’t need any mixing on site, and is specially designed to work in cold and damp conditions.

“This means the gangs can fix more potholes each day than by conventional methods.”

But he added that the repairs won’t all be long term – and that “the recent cold weather has certainly added to the damage and deterioration of the roads”.

Transport secretary Chris Grayling, pictured opposite, has promised Southampton £190,285 and HCC £2.95m out of a total of £100m for the country.

It is on top of £75 million in government funding already given to councils from the Pothole Action Fund this year, as well as the additional £46 million boost for highways authorities announced just before Christmas according to a Department for Transport statement.

Mr Grayling said: “People rely on good roads to get to work and to see friends or family.

“We have seen an unusually prolonged spell of freezing weather which has caused damage to our local roads. We are giving councils even more funding to help repair their roads all road users can enjoy their journeys without having to dodge potholes.”

Many of the problems have been blamed on the recent bad weather. The county was hit by two separate blasts of snow and ice earlier this month, as wintry conditions blew in from Russia.