Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the estimate made by the Local Government Association that it will cost £12 billion to bring roads in England “up to scratch”.

Local authorities are responsible for around 97.5% of all roads, by length, in England. The Department for Transport has made no assessment of the £12 billion estimate made by the Local Government Association. However, the report “Fixing the foundations: Creating a more prosperous nation” published by HM Treasury in July 2015 included an estimate of the backlog of maintenance works on the local road network, at that time was between £4.3 billion and £8.6 billion.

The Department for Transport is providing over £6 billion to local highway authorities between 2015 and 2021, and the Official Statistics published in January 2018 on road condition show that our investment is making a difference. ‘A’ roads and ‘B’ and ‘C’ roads combined have seen a gradual improvement (i.e. fewer roads should have been considered for maintenance) in the last five years.