Yasmin Qureshi, the MP for Bolton South East, urged Transport Minister Jesse Norman at a Westminster Hall debate yesterday to allocate councils more money for maintenance.

 

She said that the country is facing a roads crisis with 24,000 miles requiring repair in the next year and a fifth of local roads thought likely to fail in the next five years. “These issues are not being dealt with anywhere near fast enough and has culminated in an extraordinary backlog of works that need to be done,” she said.

 

Yasmin added that local authorities have had to pay out over £70M in pothole compensation since 2013, costing drivers and insurers £1M every month.

 

Two years ago, she claimed, there were 598 road traffic accidents where a poor or defective road surface was found to be a contributory factor and pointed out that potholes are “extremely dangerous” for those travelling by bicycle.

 

“One of the problems with local authority budgets is for the last eight years they have been consistently slashed, with money for potholes put onto the backburner,” she added.

 

The MP said that on one road in her constituency, potholes are so big that when it rains “the rainwater stays and causes damage to peoples’ homes” which has led to at least four families needing rehousing.

 

She recognised that Government had spent £6Bn in 2014 to tackle potholes, but said a new national settlement for funding local roads is needed. She also remarked that investing in local roads can help to boost local economies in the production of road maintenance material.

 

Transport Minister Jesse Norman responded: “Far from nothing being done, an enormous amount is being done. Everyone recognises the importance of the local road network to the economy and it will get more important when we get to autonomous vehicles in the years to come.

 

“Local authorities have a legal duty to maintain the highway asset and it is with them that the responsibility lies, but there is a case here for a more long term approach and a more strategic approach.”