Potholes and Road Maintenance

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I reiterate the point on cycling that other hon. Members have made: 64 cyclists were killed or seriously injured in 2016, so it is a serious issue.

On the value-for-money point, would the hon. Lady agree that using a Jetpatcher to repair a whole section of road, as Central Bedfordshire Council and other councils are doing, can sometimes be more efficient and a better use of taxpayers’ money than filling individual potholes that then just continue to develop?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am sure there are good ways of trying to repair roads, but they all require money. Even the cheaper option that the hon. Gentleman suggests requires money to be made available. The problem is that the money is not there.

One of the purposes of today’s debate is to highlight to the Minister and the Government the importance of the issue. I do not know why people here seem to be in denial about the fact that there is chronic underfunding and cutting of grants to local authorities. I know some constituencies and parts of the country are very wealthy and can raise enough rates to meet all their needs, but my local authority needs assistance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

I agree with the hon. Lady, and she has accurately reproduced one of the central principles of the 2012 potholes review, which was widely endorsed by everyone. Later in my speech, I will talk about how seriously we are taking that point.

[Andrew Selous]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I know that he takes these issues seriously. Will he ask the Department for Transport to have a serious conversation with the Treasury about the severity of our winters? In central Bedfordshire, we have had 90 salt runs this year, compared with an average of 50. As he knows very well, salt does a great deal of damage to our roads. There is a case for enabling the Treasury to flex the additional money it gives to councils in response to very long, severe winters like the one we just had.

[Jesse Norman]

Of course that is right. Flood resilience and other funding has been made available, and can be tweaked in response to that. Many local authorities were not prepared for the severity of last winter and the repeated freezes that damaged our roads. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The wider point is that, as part of a strategic and longer-term view of local roads funding, we can create greater resilience in the network as a whole so that those kinds of events can be better dealt with.