I got told in college, that around April time the council always starts a lot of road works so they can justify and continue to ask for X amount from the Government in terms of road work budget for the next year.

This is complete nonsense, for what it's worth. It's an age old thing people love to say, but the reality is funding doesn't work like that. Very few major road projects that will result in road works you'll even notice are funded on an annual basis like that.

In total, Greater Manchester is hundreds of millions short over the next 2-3 years to simple maintain the key roads across our city to the standard they are currently at.

Hundreds of millions short, and that does not include fixing potholes or any sort of improvement. Just keeping things as they are today.