Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

4. What steps the Government are taking to improve the condition of local roads.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

12. What steps the Government are taking to improve the condition of roads in residential areas.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

The Department for Transport is providing over £6.6 billion to local highway authorities in England between 2015 and 2021 to improve the condition of local roads. That includes a £296 million pothole action fund and the additional £420 million for local highways maintenance announced in Budget 2018.

[Jesse Norman]

I am well aware of my hon. Friend’s interest in technology and the potential ways in which it can improve productivity. He is absolutely right, and I encourage all councils to use technology better as far as possible for residents to report road-related problems. As he will be aware, they do so in Hampshire, where the county council uses an online reporting tool, but the Department has also done work to support this, not least through assistance to Cycling UK to revamp its pothole reporting website.

[Helen Goodman]

I hope that the Minister will find £60 million for County Durham. In the meantime, new estates are being built without proper roads. Instead of overseeing this 21st-century squalor, will he talk to his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to require the planning rules to be changed so that roads are built to adoptable standards?

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady will be surprised to know that there is a housing infrastructure fund that is in part precisely designed to facilitate the relationship between road building and new housing, and of course, that is what it is doing.