Highways Maintenance and Integrated Transport Funding

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

The good news is that, to everyone’s relief—including yours, Madam Deputy Speaker—I do not intend to use the full time technically available to me to filibuster on this important matter, although I do hope to make an important contribution.

Potholes drive us potty in the Potteries, which is why one of my top priorities is to fix our broken roads and pavements. The great city of Stoke-on-Trent has suffered from decades of under-investment in our roads. Previous Labour-run administrations failed to invest into our road network. It was not until 2019 when Councillor Abi Brown, the former leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and her deputy, Councillor Daniel Jellyman, made the right decision to invest a record £39 million to resurface more than 1,200 roads and pavements and fix more than 30,000 potholes. This was helped by being the first local authority to have the Staffordshire technological advancement, the JCB Pothole Pro, which fixes potholes twice as fast and at half the cost of other machinery. It is excellent that we now have one of those revolutionary machines for Staffordshire County Council, which will serve the people of Kidsgrove, Whitehill, Talke, Butt Lane, Newchapel, Mow Cop and Harriseahead.

The Prime Minister’s recent Network North announcement unlocks transformational funding for our road infrastructure, demonstrating that it is a priority for this Government. More than £8.3 billion has been set aside for councils to bring roads and pavements up to scratch. The Local Government Association argues that this will significantly improve councils’ ability to improve our road infrastructure.

Despite that investment, the funding that comes to us via the National Highways funding formula is simply not good enough, and it puts pressure on a local authority with the second poorest council tax base in the country to take money from other services in order to ensure that our roads are fit for purpose. Given the pressure on local authority budgets, it is essential that smaller cities such as Stoke-on-Trent are not put at a disadvantage.

Comprised of six towns, Stoke-on-Trent is geographically unique. Realistically, my constituents need to drive or take the bus from Burslem, Tunstall, Smallthorne or Kidsgrove—to name a few—if they to go out and about, shopping, visiting loved ones, attending a GP appointment or simply enjoy a pint down the pub. People in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke rely on their cars more than people elsewhere, because we do not have a tram network like in Manchester or an underground network like in London. That is why it is essential that our city has a reliable road network to better connect our communities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this issue. We all know that he is an assiduous and eager MP for his constituency. Does he agree that the scope of the formula ensures that rural towns and villages providing transport routes to all major towns will be fighting for the table scraps? Recognition needs to be given to the roads in small towns and rural areas on the way to the big cities. When they are closed, that means no deliveries and no commutes. The formula should treat the feeder areas as a priority as well.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which is a rite of passage in Adjournment debates. On rural communities, the Minister helpfully reminded me—believe me, I do know—that lambasting on behalf of Stoke-on-Trent will probably not go down as well with my Staffordshire-based county council, which benefits from the funding formula. Later, I will explain why the formula could be looked at or there should be a top-up element for smaller regional local authorities such as Stoke-on-Trent. They need investment, while hopefully not unfairly disadvantaging rural constituencies, such as the one the hon. Gentleman represents with great dignity and pride. Ultimately, it is as important that their roads are resurfaced and repaired as it is for the places of Stoke-on-Trent. I appreciate that I am walking a tightrope with the very people I serve, but hopefully I will fall on the right side of it, if I fall at all.

Out and about in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, and when dealing with casework in the office, the state of roads and pavements comes up frequently. That is evidenced by my regular pothole patrol, where my team and I go out at least twice a week across the constituency looking for roads and pavements that need repairing, reporting back to the local authority. Let me use this opportunity to put on record my thanks to Nathan, Conna, Jess and Mya, who all work in my office in Tunstall, for going out in all weathers to assist me and the community by reporting potholes to our local authority.

One of the reasons for Stoke-on-Trent’s broken roads and pavements is the unfair road funding formulas. The formulas put busy cities like Stoke-on-Trent at a disadvantage, and I have been campaigning to change them since 2020. The current highways funding formula used by the Department for Transport is calculated on road length, rather than road usage. Therefore, a busy road in the centre of a city will get less funding than a long winding D road in the countryside that is used less intensively and with fewer vehicle types such as heavy goods vehicles. Research conducted by the Department for Transport in 2018 suggests that A roads under local authority control made up only 10% of road length across the country, but that that 10% carries 31% of the nation’s traffic. Minor roads made up 88% of road length, but the proportion of traffic they carry, 34%, was only slightly greater than that on A roads. The remaining 35% of traffic is carried on the 3% of roads that are motorways or trunk A roads.

Clearly, the current road funding formula is putting smaller cities like Stoke-on-Trent at a disadvantage. I want to see new considerations introduced to the formula that would top up cities like Stoke-on-Trent, which lack the mileage of minor roads but show due regard for road type, with principal A roads attracting a premium in some way related to their reported condition. The high concentration of warehouses in Stoke-on-Trent means that our roads are used by heavy goods vehicles more regularly. Again, that puts the city at a disadvantage because bigger vehicles carrying heavier loads do more damage to road surfaces. There would need to be safeguarding against false reporting of road conditions, and it would be useful to include a match-funding element for cities, such as Stoke-on-Trent, that put precious resources into roads despite having a low council tax base.

It is not something we like to brag about in Stoke-on-Trent, but there is an old folks’ tale that the word “pothole” originated in our fine city after Josiah Wedgwood decided to dig up all the clay available in the road to make his fine pottery, and to put the pottery that was not up to scratch back into the roads to make sure we had a surface. It is not something we like to brag about, but it is certainly something we want to deal with to ensure we have a pothole-free community. When I start seeing constituents floating ducks or planting flowers in their roads—once or twice I have even thought about a bit of pitch and putt in some of the streets, because of their poor condition—it is vital that they feel they are getting their rightful investment.

Westminster City Council spends around £70 million a year on road maintenance thanks to its parking revenue. That is in stark contrast with Stoke-on-Trent, which spends on average between £700,000 and £800,000, or around 1% of Westminster’s figure. It is extremely difficult for Stoke-on-Trent to match Westminster’s parking revenues, which means more support needs to be directed to areas that struggle to generate as much revenue as the likes of Westminster. For example, I have been campaigning to resurface Gloucester Road and Newchapel Road in Kidsgrove, a key arterial road linking the parish together. Four schools, a day nursery, Maple Tree Court care home and the pump track at Newchapel Rec, which I secured from the Kidsgrove town deal funding, are all located off this road, so it is critical that it is safe for both pedestrians and motorists. Over 300 local residents today have backed my petition to Staffordshire County Council, and I hope the Minister will use this opportunity to add his weight to my campaign.

I also hope that, in trying to get the funding formula changed, the campaign will be a roaring success with motorists in the constituency, just like the victory we secured when over 1,100 residents backed my petition to call on Stoke-on-Trent City Council to rule out Sadiq Khan’s disastrous Marxist ultra low emission zone policies from coming to our great city. I commend Stoke-on-Trent Labour for its bravery in standing up against its national party policy, when Labour’s deputy leader, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner)—I informed her ahead of the debate—said she wanted to see ULEZ

“in towns and cities across the whole of the UK”.

Cabinet member Councillor Wazir remained silent for over 100 days before finally coming out against ULEZ-loving national Labour to rule out these anti-motorist policies. It is a relief to residents across Stoke-on-Trent and wider north Staffordshire, who will be able to use our improved roads without facing farcical attempts to punish them for getting from A to B.

The Government’s Network North announcement presents a new deal for the north and the midlands, helping the region to compete with London and the south-east. Along with the improvements to our bus and rail networks—such as the reopening of the Stoke to Leek line, closed since the Beeching cuts of 1969, following my petition which received the backing of over 1,000 local residents and a campaign alongside my north Staffordshire colleagues—Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire’s road network will also benefit significantly. As I said earlier, over £8.3 billion has been set aside for councils to bring roads and pavements up to scratch. Money from that £8.3 billion will be used to upgrade junction 15 of the M6, a main access route to the Potteries from the south, which will reduce delays coming off the motorway.

We are also going to see upgrades to the A50-A500 corridor from Stoke to Derby, which could save drivers over 30 minutes every weekday. These enhancements could create over 12,000 new jobs and generate millions for the west midlands economy. Following a report called “Levelling-up Stoke, Staffordshire, Derby & Derbyshire: The Road to Success”, a series of recommendations were put forward for long-awaited upgrades badly needed to alleviate bottlenecks along the 90 km-long A50-A500 corridor, which links Derby, Nottingham and Leicester to Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and the north-west. The road is one of the UK’s key arteries and large manufacturers such as JCB, Rolls-Royce and Toyota rely on this key east-west route to keep supply chains moving and provide links to international markets.

Currently, traffic congestion on the A50-A500 threatens to stand in the way of business growth. The route sees between 60,000 and 90,000 vehicles passing along it every single day and needs urgent support. The project has the backing of MPs, local authorities and businesses, and is key to unlocking growth in the west midlands, where cities such as Stoke-on-Trent will benefit significantly if those businesses flourish. I am pleased that the money from Network North is being set aside to help deliver this key route.

Finally, while I have the Minister here, I want quickly to mention another beneficiary of the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement: Kidsgrove railway station. Having spent months negotiating who is responsible for remediation works to mitigate the risk from former mining activity at the site, I am dismayed that Network Rail has still yet to take full responsibility. Plans include a new car park to increase capacity and drive more footfall into Kidsgrove town centre, which will supplement the landmark town deal funding. That is in addition to other upgrades at the station, including new shelters on the platforms and a café. There is also the shared services hub, which is another significant beneficiary of the town deal. I am calling for Lord Hendy, chairman of Network Rail, to hold James Dean, the west coast main line’s route services director, to account for repeated failures to act in the interests of the people he is supposed to serve.

I am incredibly proud of the work we have done as a local community to secure investment in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire since 2019, but there is more to be done both in Stoke-on-Trent and nationally. The overriding mission of levelling up is to allow places such as Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, which have not seen the benefits of an economic consensus driven by Whitehall, to compete with other parts of the UK. The road funding formula is symbolic of that and changing it would be of huge benefit to our city. It is a litmus test for the Government’s levelling-up agenda.