Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve road quality and (b) reduce the number of potholes.

The Government is investing more than £5.5 billion between 2020 and 2025 into local highways maintenance, which is enough to fill millions of potholes, repair dozens of bridges, and resurface roads up and down the country. It is up to local authorities to determine how best to spend this funding, based on local needs and priorities. Well-planned maintenance to prevent potholes and other defects from forming in the first place is vital, and the Department has worked with groups including the UK Roads Leadership Group and the Association of Directors, for Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) to raise standards and encourage good practice in highway maintenance.

In 2019, Government provided £22.9 million into the ADEPT Live Labs programme, empowering local authorities to drive innovation, use new materials, and create new techniques for highways that can be deployed throughout the country’s local road network. This research programme concluded in June 2022.

Based on the success of this previous programme, Government is now supporting a second round of Live Labs (‘Live Labs 2’). The Government has provided £30 million for seven carbon and climate change-related projects working across four interconnected thematic areas including a UK centre of excellence for materials. These are being led by local authorities working alongside commercial and academic partners.