Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) cost-efficiency of pothole repair strategies in Surrey Heath Constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Surrey County Council is the local highway authority for the Surrey Heath constituency. The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to helping local highway authorities such as Surrey County Council maintain and renew their local highway networks.
At Budget 2024, the Chancellor announced an extra £500 million for local highway maintenance for the 2025/26 financial year, with funding allocations to individual English local highway authorities announced on 20 December 2024. Surrey County Council will receive up to £32.4 million for local highway maintenance in 2025/26, an increase of around 38% compared to the current financial year.
The effectiveness and cost-efficiency of Surrey’s highway maintenance programmes, including strategies concerning potholes and other road defects, is a matter for the Council.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to prevent sinkhole formation in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Tackling problems such as sinkholes on local roads is a matter for local highway authorities. Surrey County Council is the local highway authority for Surrey Heath constituency. For the 2025/26 financial year, the Government is providing Surrey County Council with £32.4 million for local highway maintenance, which is an extra £8.5 million compared to 2024/25. It is up to local highway authorities to determine how best to spend this funding to maintain all parts of their networks, including tackling issues of this sort.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to mitigate travel disruptions caused by flooding in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises that flooding can have a devastating impact on people, businesses and communities, as well as causing disruption to all road users. The Government is working at pace to accelerate the building of flood defences through a new Floods Resilience Taskforce and is investing £2.4 billion to better protect people and communities across the country.
Surrey County Council is the local highway authority for Surrey Heath. For the 2025/26 financial year, the Government is providing Surrey County Council with £32.4 million for local highway maintenance, which is an extra £8.5 million compared to 2024/25. Funding allocations can be found on gov.uk.
In addition, the Department is working with the UK Roads Leadership Group’s (UKRLG) Adaptation, Biodiversity & Climate Board to provide guidance to local highway authorities on how to reduce the mitigate the impacts of flooding on local roads. A recently published UKRLG-commissioned report, Emergency Preparedness, Response & Recovery, considers the lessons learned from extreme weather events, such as flooding, and makes recommendations for Government and local highway authorities on improving resilience.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of Farnborough Airport’s expansion on (a) noise pollution and (b) air pollution in the South-East.
Answered by Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Assessment of the potential impact of Farnborough Airport’s expansion is a matter for Rushmoor Borough Council as local planning authority responsible for considering the airport’s planning application.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of London-licensed Uber drivers operating in non-metropolitan areas on the viability of independent taxi businesses.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Taxis and private hire vehicles have always been permitted to carry pre-booked fares outside the area in which they are licensed. This allows the sector to work more flexibly to meet the needs of their passengers.
The Government however recognises concerns around out-of-area working and is considering options to strengthen the regulation of the sector.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department has taken to (a) promote and (b) develop green transport infrastructure such as (i) cycle paths, (ii) electric vehicle charging points and (iii) electric bus routes.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has recently announced nearly £300 million of funding to help local authorities and Sustrans to introduce and improve walking and cycling paths, and to fund promote walking, wheeling and cycling.
As of 1 February 2025, the Government and industry have supported the installation of 74,234 publicly available charging devices (including 14,687 rapid charging devices).
Since 2021, the Department has awarded over £460m of dedicated funding for zero emission buses and infrastructure in England (outside London). Future funding to support the continued decarbonisation of the bus sector, as well as to support local authorities to deliver important air quality improvements, will be considered as part of the forthcoming Spending Review.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to support Surrey residents affected by the delayed roadworks at Junction 10 on the M25 motorway.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department understands the concerns residents may have due to the delays of the M25 Junction 10. National Highways is focused on completing these works as soon as possible and will do everything possible to keep disruption to a minimum. The A245 is a key east-west route in Surrey, carrying heavy traffic between the A3/M25, Cobham, and key locations such as Feltonfleet school. Any work on this route is inherently disruptive, but efforts have been made to reduce the impact. National Highways has reduced the number of weekend closures, cutting the original 16 full weekend closures for the M25 and A3 down to five for the M25 and four for the A3, avoiding seven closures in total. This approach helps to minimise overall network disruption. Additionally, overnight working and close traffic monitoring are in place to reduce congestion and swiftly address any incidents. Where traffic management is necessary, National Highways uses extensive CCTV monitoring to swiftly address incidents. National Highways remains committed to ongoing engagement with key stakeholders and will continue to share plans for the remaining works.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the expansion of Heathrow Airport on levels of air pollution in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government has invited proposals for a third runway at Heathrow to be brought forward by the summer.
Once proposals have been received, the government will review the Airports National Policy Statement, which provides the basis for decision making on granting development consent for a new runway at Heathrow.
The government has been clear that any airport expansion proposals need to demonstrate that they contribute to economic growth, can be delivered in line with the UK’s legally binding commitments on carbon and meet strict environmental requirements on air quality and noise pollution.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of (a) recruiting new driving instructors and (b) opening new test centres in the Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
On the 18 December, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) set out further plans to reduce driving test waiting times across the country. These steps include recruiting 450 driving examiners (DEs). Full details of these steps can be found on GOV.UK.
As part of driving test centres (DTC) that serve the Surrey Heath constituency, Guildford DTC and Farnborough DTC form a recruitment cluster that newer driving examiners (DE) move between.
As part of recent recruitment, two new DEs were recruited last year at Guildford DTC. DVSA has also made offers to two more potential new entrants from its most recent recruitment campaign and is currently planning for the next campaign beginning later this year.
The DVSA is committed to providing its customers with the best service possible. DVSA continually reviews its estate to ensure it represents good value for money and is efficient. It currently has no plans for any additional driving test centres.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to enhance strategic road networks before the development of new housing projects in the South East.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
National Highways play a key role in the planning process to determine the necessary strategic road requirements of new major housing projects, and new major developments are a key consideration in future network investment planning as part of the Road Investment Strategy. Alongside this, the Department continues to work with colleagues in the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government and other partners to deliver a well-designed, integrated, and affordable transport network that unlocks homes and supports new developments. This is key to realising wider growth benefits, including reducing congestion and emissions, and ensuring communities can access jobs and services.