Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information her Department holds on the number and proportion of miles of roads in (a) Dunstable and (b) Leighton Buzzard that are in poor condition.

The Department for Transport collects information on the condition of roads from local highways authorities. Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard make up part of the local highway authority of Central Bedfordshire.

Information on the condition of roads specifically in Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard would be held by the local highway authority of Central Bedfordshire. Unfortunately, it is not held by the Department at this level of granularity.

Information on the condition of roads in England is collected and published by the Department annually here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/road-network-size-and-condition. However, no information for the condition of roads in Central Bedfordshire has been provided to the Department since the financial year ending March 2019.

The data held by the Department for the financial years ending March 2010 to March 2019 showed that:

• The percentage of A road that should have been considered for maintenance (‘red roads’) was between 1% and 3% for Central Bedfordshire, while during the same time-period the national level of red road was between 3% and 5%.
• The percentage of red B & C road was between 2% and 5%, whereas the national level was between 6% and 10%.
• The percentage of red Unclassified (‘U’) road was between 3% and 21%, and the national level was between 15% to 18%.