Roadworks: Journey Times

Paul Kohler Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) for securing this important debate. I know from my own inbox and those of my colleagues that this impacts many of our constituents’ lives, work and businesses. Just this weekend in my own constituency, there has been large-scale disruption from roadworks. On the A3, which runs through Wimbledon, roadworks caused huge congestion not just in south-west London but across much of Surrey and Hampshire. It was particularly severe because the disruption was compounded by South Western Railway’s decision to cancel trains on the same route due to planned engineering works on the line, something to which I will return.

A lack of investment in our roads has left many in a dire state, with less than half the local road miles in England and Wales now classified as being in good structural condition. Urgent work to repair our roads is vital, particularly as delays in maintenance compounds the problems, leading to higher costs and greater disruption.

As transport spokesman, I am of course the most important person on the Lib Dem Front Bench as I am the lead on that staple of every Lib Dem Focus leaflet, the ubiquitous pothole. I consequently welcome the Chancellor’s announcement today of additional funding to fix potholes, as I know the Minister will as well. However, before we get carried away by this bounty, let us not lose sight of the fact that it comes against the backdrop of a real-terms cut to the Department for Transport budget, which I will cover in more detail in a subsequent Budget speech.

Clearly, the roadworks needed to fix such problems inevitably cause disruption to the road network, leading to longer journey times, which are not only frustrating but economically damaging. In 2021, National Highways estimated that delays on the strategic road network, of which at least 15% were due to roadworks, cost the economy around £3 billion a year.

It is therefore vital that when roadworks are planned, disruption to the wider network is minimised. That requires communication across the sector to co-ordinate matters. However, it is sadly all too apparent that there is a lack of joined-up thinking, and that there is too much fragmentation across our transport system to achieve that co-ordination. On the London to Portsmouth route last weekend, for example, it should surely have been possible to ensure that planned work on the A3 and the rail line did not coincide. That is the type of problem that we need to avoid. I trust that the Department for Transport’s promised long-term strategy addresses such issues.

In addition to roadworks to maintain and improve our roads, another source of delay, frustration and cost is street works: utility companies digging up our roads. There is a great deal of congestion in Wimbledon town centre at the moment. Wimbledon Hill Road is completely shut because of emergency work on a collapsed sewer, which is leading to major disruption to bus routes and traffic jams in surrounding roads, significantly increasing journey times in much of my constituency. Of course, an emergency is an emergency—I understand that—but it does not excuse utility companies not doing all they can to ensure that disruption is kept to a minimum, as the hon. Member for Broxbourne said.

Companies are obliged to return the roads to the state in which they found them, but they often do not, as many people in my constituency know. Yes, utility companies can theoretically be fined up to £10,000 a day for delays, but many roads have fines capped at £250, and even that level of enforcement is problematic. The Lib Dems strongly believe that local authorities need to be given more powers to ensure that utility companies minimise the disruption they cause and do not act with impunity. The previous Government consulted on increasing their powers, including raising the level of FPNs that can be issued for certain street work offences and allowing overrun charges to apply at weekends and bank holidays, but the results were never published. The Minister has said that the results will be released in due course, and I hope that she might take this opportunity to tell us when that will be.

We all know that our road network is crucial to constituents and businesses. The Government could be doing more to keep the traffic flowing, people travelling and the economy growing.