Potholes: Suffolk

Paula Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Paula Barker (in the Chair)]

Order. Due to the earlier Division, the revised end time for this debate is 5.40 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I think this is the second time my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) has invited Members of this House to visit his constituency. I am a regular visitor—it is a beautiful part of the world—and I thank him for all that he is doing on the issue and on Haughley junction, which I will come on to.

Every week, I am out talking to local residents who raise the same issue over and over again: potholes. People in Ipswich and Suffolk are fed up. Frankly, they have every right to be. This is not something that has occurred just in the past year; this comes after years of under-investment. As my hon. Friend articulated so well, it is leaving rough and unpredictable surfaces that leave drivers with burst tyres, buckled wheels and expensive repairs. Cyclists are forced into rush hour traffic to avoid dangerous craters. Parents are late to work because the school run has revealed a new hole in the road.

For people across Ipswich and Suffolk, the state of our road network is not merely an inconvenience; it is a daily source of frustration, cost and, in some cases, genuine danger. That is why the publication of the Government’s road maintenance audit earlier this year was so important. For the first time, we have an objective measure of how councils are performing in maintaining our roads. Results for Suffolk were incredibly disappointing, although not surprising for anybody who uses our roads. Suffolk received an overall red rating, placing it among the worst-performing highways authorities in the country.

We have to be honest about what, and who, is culpable. Is it the Conservatives at Suffolk county council, who until May this year were in power for more than two decades? Was it their incompetence that led to one of the worst ratings in the country, or was it the Conservative Government here in Westminster who were in power for 14 years and starved Suffolk and its roads of the investment it needed? This is not just a little bit of rain; it is huge underfunding. Between 2011 and 2020, Suffolk’s annual highways allocation was cut from more than £22 million to £17.5 million.

I can only presume that whatever fantasy unicorns might have been in the 2024 general election manifesto should go in the same bucket as the unfunded hospitals and the Ely-Haughley upgrade that was announced three times but never funded. We cannot really believe any of it, given that the Conservatives had 14 years in power and their record was one of cutting funding. Admittedly, it crept up a little towards the end of their time in office, as the general election loomed, but by then it was too little, too late. The result was entirely predictable: short-term fixes became the norm, roads deteriorated and taxpayers ended up paying more in the long run. That is the consequence when incompetence and lack of interest are married with a complete lack of funding.

I am pleased that our Government are taking a fundamentally different approach. To make that possible, as I am sure the Minister will mention, we are investing £7.3 billion in local roads over four years and doubling national road maintenance funding by the end of this Parliament. That is the biggest investment in road maintenance our country has ever seen, and it includes record funding for Suffolk. Over the next four years, our county will receive £219 million to improve and maintain local roads.

By 2029-30, funding will reach nearly £65 million a year, nearly quadruple what it was under the Conservatives in 2020. That is not a modest uplift, tinkering around the edges or a temporary sticking-plaster; it represents a fundamental change in how our roads are funded. Instead of the hand-to-mouth approach of yearly settlements that we had under the Conservatives, this is a long-term funding commitment so that councils such as Suffolk county council will know exactly what they are getting for the next four years and can plan ahead. Instead of endless patch-and-mend repairs, they will have the certainty and resources to plan long-term improvements and prevent potholes in the first place, which is what we all want to see. That is the difference between the managed decline that we saw under the Conservatives, and the investment and renewal under our Government.

Investment alone, however, is not enough; delivery also matters. I will slightly depart from the assessment of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket. The new Reform administration at Suffolk county council did not create this mess—that lies squarely with the Conservatives, locally and nationally—but it has inherited record road maintenance funding and now has the responsibility to right the wrongs that have been evident in the system for years. It has the resources and now the certainty, and residents rightly expect to see results.

Pothole-riddled roads in Suffolk are not the county’s only transport challenge. I am delighted about the package of measures that the Government have allocated to our county, including £9 million to improve bus services, the biggest upgrade since 1998. They are investing £4.5 million for active travel, which includes improved walking and cycling provision, and committed nearly £55 million in funding for upgrades around the A12/A14 Seven Hills roundabout. These are significant investments, but of course I want more. On Ely-Haughley, for example, there is a single point of failure in Suffolk, which is the Orwell bridge—

[Paula Barker (in the Chair)]

Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman to remain within the scope of the debate, please?

[Jack Abbott]

I was about to say that road maintenance relies on transport infrastructure, which is why Ely-Haughley is so important. The Ely-Haughley scheme will take 100,000 HGVs off the road, which is incredibly important, but it is not a like-for-like replacement for the Orwell bridge, which is crossed by more than 12,000 HGVs a day coming from one of the world’s busiest container ports. That is a crucial piece of infrastructure. We have a job to do locally to make sure we renew the business case, which is now half a decade old, and see whether we can reduce the number of level crossings. The scheme has my wholehearted support, and support across the House, but we have a job to do in our local system. I am pleased that Transport East in particular has grasped the nettle.

[Jack Abbott]

I appreciate that the hon. Member has not been in Parliament for a while, so he may not be aware of the conversations that we have been having across the system. He is absolutely right to point out that the previous Conservative Government pledged three times to move ahead with Ely-Haughley but did not allocate a single penny of funding. It is also the case, however, that we have met consistently with the Rail Minister about this issue. The business case that was put forward for Ely-Haughley is now half a decade out of date. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) can continue shaking his head, but this is the reality, and I am giving strong feedback. This is feedback, by the way, that Transport East has grasped, that the Cambridgeshire mayoral authority knows and that our chamber of commerce knows, so it seems that everybody apart from the hon. Member is aware of the detail here.

We have been asked, as a local system, to update the business case, because how can we reasonably ask the Government to fund something half a decade out of date, from before the Liz Truss mini-Budget? How can we reduce the number of level crossings along the Ely stretch, which will also reduce the cost of this important infrastructure scheme? Is there any private investment that we can put into it, in a similar way to the lower Thames crossing? Can we build up wider regional support for the scheme? The ball is in our court. Every single stakeholder locally knows that and is advancing with that.

The other thing I would say is that Suffolk has to get serious. Collectively, we have to get serious when we pitch for funding. We are competing against every single region and nation in this country. To sit there and amateurishly keep demanding the same thing, over and over again—[Interruption.]

[Paula Barker (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I remind Members to be mindful of their tone, please?

[Jack Abbott]

Absolutely. But to make the same amateurish demands time and again, without doing any of the straightforward things that have been clearly asked of us, is not feasible. That is why, collectively, the local system is heading towards the spending review and is making sure that we are doing the things that have been asked of us at a local level.

I hope that the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich will listens to some of this and reflects on it, and that he will join with Transport East, the mayoral combined authority, the chambers of commerce and Members of all parties across the House on this. It does not look as though he is going to do that, which is unfortunate, because we could use all power to the wheel.

What I was going on to say, before I was interrupted, was about the fact that the Ely-Haughley upgrade is incredibly important. We want to move freight from HGVs on to our rail network. However, that is not a silver bullet for our local road system. As I say, 12,000 HGVs a day cross the Orwell bridge. We also have the Copdock junction, which I have talked to the previous Roads Minister about on a number of occasions. It is a crucial pinch point in our local road network, and one that impacts on Felixstowe. I am really hoping that we can move it forward in a future road investment strategy programme, after it was pushed from RIS3 to RIS4.

However, we have structural weaknesses within our road network. Although those schemes are incredibly important, there still seems to be a single point of failure in the Orwell bridge. Every time the bridge closes, Ipswich and the surrounding area grind to a halt. That pushes HGVs on to our country roads and unsuitable road networks, which creates an even bigger problem for road maintenance. Residents sit in traffic for hours, businesses lose money, emergency services are delayed and our local economy pays the price too.