Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of maintaining balancing ponds owned by National Highways.

Maintenance costs for the Strategic Road Network (SRN) are borne by National Highways and their financial systems do not categorise spending to the level of sub-asset class granularity. I, therefore, cannot provide a reliable estimate for the costs of maintaining balancing ponds.