Road Maintenance

Alex Mayer Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

“It’s like driving over the surface of the moon,”

is what Karen from Houghton Regis told me. Marion and Brian explained how they had had two tyres ruined, costing them over £200. A plumber from Dunstable sent me multiple photos of craters in his road. Councillor Matt Brennan showed me more when we visited Aldbanks in Dunstable, and a constituent in Leighton Buzzard told me that Mile Tree Road has become increasingly hazardous because of the number of potholes.

After 14 years of Conservative rule and the increasing effects of climate change, too many of our roads are in a sorry state. Figures from the RAC show that drivers encounter, on average, six potholes per mile in England and Wales. That is bad news for not only car drivers but cyclists, bus users and coaches.

I welcome the Government’s investment in improving our road conditions. This Labour Government have increased the funding to Central Bedfordshire council to nearly £9.7 million this year, which represents a 39.7% increase. That sounds like really good news, and one would think that more potholes would get filled in, so I was really concerned to see that the council budget showed only a 5% increase in highways spending. I appreciate that Central Bedfordshire council also contributes capital to the highways budget along with the Government, but I was hugely disappointed by a statement made at the council’s joint budget scrutiny taskforce committee:

“When the Government announced that we would receive more funding, the decision was made to spend less of our own money rather than increase the programme.”

I have warned that that attitude could jeopardise the full uplift of Government funding. I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on that.

In the light of that, I particularly welcome the Government’s plan, as we have heard, for councils to publish reports on their websites by the end of June detailing what they are doing to improve the state of local roads. I was especially pleased to hear that the reports will be short and in plain English—all reports should be, really. Particularly important is that the template means that councils must show how many holes they filled in during the previous five years. Residents expect, and indeed deserve, to see the number of potholes being filled in increasing. We are all watching this space.

Councils will also be required to show how they are spending more on long-term preventive maintenance programmes, which is incredibly important. As I have said, we are living in a time of climate emergency, and the wetter winters and extremes of hot and cold are making potholes worse by increasing the number of freeze-and-thaw cycles. However, some emerging technologies may help. Apparently, artificial intelligence can identify cracks and spot potholes before they appear. There are also graphene-reinforced asphalt, which is self-healing, as well as bacteria-infused cement and systems to regulate road temperatures. Tech is clearly moving apace. Given all those innovations, is the Minister considering updating the Department’s guidance on preventing potholes during the winter?

While we are on climate change, well-maintained and smoother roads reduce fuel consumption and cut emissions. Data show that smoother roads can reduce vehicle emissions by more than 5%. The opposite is true for bad roads: the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that poor road conditions have an impact on driver behaviour, as I think we know as we try to swerve around potholes. It has calculated that that changed driver behaviour from speeding up and slowing down means that CO₂ emissions are about 0.5 tonnes higher.

It is also crucial to minimise the disruption caused by utility companies’ street works—I know that Ministers have repeatedly stated that—because we know that when a road is opened up with a trench, that can reduce its structural life by an average of 17%. I therefore draw all hon. Members’ attention to the street works inquiry currently being carried out by the Transport Committee, which I and other hon. Members in the Chamber are members of. Members can tune in to any of the evidence sessions, and the final report will be available very soon in all good Vote Offices.

We are all familiar with instances where the same stretch of road or pavement seems to be repeatedly opened up by different companies over a short period, particularly in new developments. A constituent wrote to me about Bedford Road in Houghton Regis to say that, over roughly a month, five different companies had dug up the road, one after another. When I queried that with the council’s street works team, I was informed that

“no collaboration opportunities were identified to reduce the number of road closures”.

Residents think the situation is ridiculous.

Let me turn to cost. In April 2024, the Centre for Economics and Business Research reported that poor road conditions were costing £14.4 billion a year in economic damage to England—or 60% of a Tory Government black hole, as I like to think of it. But there is hope, because the Department for Transport’s economic appraisal tells us that for every pound invested in local road maintenance, there is a minimum return of £2.20, and typical returns identified of up to £9.10 at a national level.

Finally, let me turn to buses and coaches. Unlike car motorists, cyclists and pedestrians who can often take different routes when there is a particularly bad potholed road or a road is closed because of potholes, buses have an obligation to stick to their routes wherever possible. The Confederation of Passenger Transport highlights a 13% increase in bus operators’ costs per kilometre since 2019, with much of that attributed to delays, diversions and disruption, including those caused by the poor state of roads. First Bus told me that it spends more than £1 million each year repairing bus suspension components. That cost inevitably gets passed on to passengers through higher fares and reduced service levels.

I welcome the Labour Government’s investment in road maintenance and sincerely hope that all local councils will rise to the challenge. For my constituent who thinks it is like driving on the moon, this really is not rocket science, but nor is it just a matter of inconvenience. Filling in these potholes is crucial for safety, for the environment and for economic growth.

Improving Public Transport

Alex Mayer Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be called to give my maiden speech, and I do so with a sense of trepidation and excitement, which I imagine that many a new MP feels. It has struck me that maiden speeches are a little like buses: you wait ages, and then 335 of them turn up at once. I beg your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, to listen to one more as we near the end of this journey.

As hon. Members will know, the excellent House of Commons Library helpfully provides us with the maiden speeches of our last two predecessors, to give us a feel for this place and to acknowledge the work of those who came before us. Mr Selous served for a whopping 23 years, and I pay tribute to his work as an assiduous constituency representative who stood up for what he believed in. I discovered in his maiden speech that he in turn referred to his predecessor who served for 31 years, who in turn harked back to the Member who came before him—the last Labour MP for the area—who was elected back in 1966. Clearly, 1966 was a year that was rather good for teams in red, albeit followed by rather too many years of hurt.

History shows us how rarely change comes for these communities, yet change is desperately needed: on shop- lifting, I have met workers who have been spat at, threatened with needles and even a gun; the lack of healthcare facilities, including in Houghton Regis and Leighton-Linslade; sewage polluting our waterways; and transport. I am delighted to be a member of the Transport Committee, and transport is the subject of the debate, which I congratulate the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing.

My constituency has a long history of transport innovation. It has Britain’s oldest road, dating back to prehistoric times, the Icknield way, which runs through the constituency. It has the Grand Union canal, the freight superhighway of its day. Leighton Buzzard railway once transported sand from quarries and is now a much-loved tourism attraction, going full steam ahead. More recently, we have one of the longest guided busways in Europe, which I hope one day can be extended. That brings me neatly to the topic of buses and encouraging more people to switch on to them, which is so vital in this time of climate emergency.

I welcome the BSIP investment announced recently by the Government, and I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about plans to allow more local areas to have a smoother path to franchising. I am keen for the Minister to look carefully at transport governance. London and Greater Manchester, which have franchising already, have also historically had alignment of transport powers, resources and capacity all in one centralised place. Passenger transport executives and their equivalents can accelerate the delivery of transport plans and play a crucial role in unlocking regional economic growth. For 50 years, such structures have benefited from much higher levels of control and co-ordination of buses. They also benefit from running over a much more logical functional economic geography.

Outside such areas, transport powers are held in many different places, and they require a number of organisations to independently agree reforms to enact change. That can mean, for example, that bus stops, which are surely the window to the soul of buses, can be owned by an organisation with no say in how the bus service itself is run. In many places in the country, highways and transport powers are split. We perhaps need more passenger transport executives, although the Urban Transport Group advises that the last passenger transport executive was established so long ago—not quite so long ago as when a Labour MP last represented Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard—that the mechanics around establishing a new one are unclear.

In any case, we need governance that is fit for the 21st century, with the right delegated functions being granted to a passenger transport executive or equivalent, and the establishment of an executive function to speed up decision making and delivery that makes the difference. It needs to be based on a geography that reflects travel patterns as well as wider social and economic geographies, and which gives a large enough base to raise farebox income.

On geography, I argue that there need to be possibilities to franchise in areas larger than local transport authorities. Given that franchising is not entirely a silver bullet, I urge the Minister to look at the geography of enhanced partnerships as well. It is only one bus, but the F70, which travels from Luton to Milton Keynes via Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard, goes through three separate enhanced partnership areas.

Finally, I thank Grant Palmer, Arriva and First, which have invited me aboard their buses recently, and Dawsongroup for bringing a double-decker bus just outside Parliament for Catch the Bus Month, which many hon. Members from across the House came to support. It is my belief, really, that every month should be Catch the Bus Month. I urge all hon. Members to get on board and back our local buses all year round.