Road Maintenance

Peter Prinsley Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

People in Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket must navigate pockmarked and pimpled streets—how depressing and frustrating! People are forced to accept a fear of damage or even injury as a precondition of using our roads, and they are locked in extended battles for compensation with the council and their insurers. We all know about this problem.

Only 36% of local roads in the east of England are in good structural condition. People talk about the effects of potholes on motorists, and quite rightly—they are dangerous, damaging to cars and a daily irritant for many of us. However, it is not just car owners who are affected by our roads, and many people know a horror story. It is no surprise to me, having sat in this debate, that my son, a student at Keele University in Stoke-on-Trent, was involved in a horrendous bicycle crash as he came down a steep hill and went head over heels when his front wheel landed in a pothole.

Cyclists know all about potholes. The evidence suggests that between 2017 and 2023, one person per week was killed or seriously injured while cycling, so potholes cause deaths. This is a trend that has not shown any sign of abating. Bus drivers and taxi operators cannot do their job safely when the roads underneath them simply do not work, and our emergency services cannot help us if they are expected to use crumbling roads. I have heard of paramedics whose ambulances have been damaged, to the point of being undriveable, by hitting a pothole on the way to a call-out. Better, smoother roads will support our local economies, improve transport and, most importantly, limit the number of accidents, so it is wonderful to hear that the Government are at last doing something after more than a decade in which our local roads were simply ignored under the Tories.

In Suffolk, the effect of the decline in highway spending—last year, it was down by almost 25% compared with 2015—can be easily seen, but that is already changing. Potholes are getting fixed more quickly, because our local authorities are getting a much-needed injection of cash from this Labour Government. In Suffolk, they are getting an extra £11.7 million this year for that purpose.

This Labour Government are taking this issue seriously and delivering for the people of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, and I am glad to see that they are not simply papering over the cracks. They will use the latest tech to ensure that public money is spent as effectively as possible on lasting repairs so that our roads do not split up again. Brilliant new pothole-filling machines and surfacing technologies will save us money, and it was great to hear about the advances in technology from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner).

Ministers have taken the decisive action that the previous Government put off for too long, and I hope the rest of the House can join me in congratulating them on that.