Kent County Council has announced an extra £2m has been found for tackling a huge backlog of pothole repairs.

Council leader Paul Carter said the extra cash took the total amount for pothole fixes this year to £8.1m amid mounting criticism of the state of the county’s roads.

Speaking at a full council meeting today, Mr Carter said the authority would spend the money addressing the worst-affected roads in the county.

He said: "The Beast from the East had a huge impact on the state of the 5,000 miles of roads that we are responsible for in Kent.

"I am therefore pleased to announce today that we will be putting an extra £2m into the maintenance of the roads and this will take the total pothole and drainage budget to £8.1m.

"Gangs of excellent, and predominantly Kent-based, engineers are being mobilised as I speak to repair the damage caused.

"Towards the middle of June we will then reflect on how the work is going and I can assure you that, if more work is needed, we will find the additional budget required to fix the potholes."

Cabinet member for roads and transport Cllr Mike Whiting revealed the estimated additional costs of road repairs after the “beast from the east” was about £4m.

It comes as it emerged that KCC had turned down a third of all pothole compensation claims from motorists over the last two years.

Figures provided under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that of 995 claims in the past two years, 342 - just under a third - have been turned down by the authority on these grounds.

Opposition Lib Dem leader Cllr Rob Bird said: "KCC is rejecting more compensation claims than many other parts of the country. We are failing in our duty to keep our highways safe for all road users."

Labour spokesman Cllr Dara Farrell said that while the extra cash was welcome, it was wrong to reject compensation claims on the grounds that work was planned.

"We would not expect payment of council tax on the grounds that the bill would be paid at some point in the future."

It has been estimated that there is a £630m backlog of repairs across Kent’s 5000-mile network of roads.