Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps with local authorities to introduce a ten-year maintenance plan for local roads.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
There are considerable benefits to providing local highway authorities with multi-year funding certainty. This helps them enter into long-term arrangements with contractors and the supply chain as well as to carry out more planned and proactive maintenance, thus delivering better value for money for the taxpayer.
The Department is mid-way through the three-year funding settlement for local highway maintenance that was announced in 2021. This comprises approximately £915 million of capital funding per year for local highways maintenance between 2022/23 and 2024/25 for eligible local highway authorities across England outside of London and the Mayoral Combined Authorities. The Mayoral Combined Authorities which are in receipt of City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) already have five-year funding settlements.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure that trees planted by National Highways as part of tree planting schemes are maintained.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The early establishment years are particularly challenging for tree success. The early survival rate is very dependent on prevailing climatic conditions.
However, National Highways has been listening to customers and communities, and is committed to delivering a more sustainable network, that protects and strengthens the environment for the future. To meet its Net Zero Carbon commitment to plant an additional 3 million trees they have sourced native tree seed of UK provenance and are growing these in a UK nursery to begin planting in 2024-25. National Highway’s Chief Highway Engineer is overseeing a rewrite of specifications for highways, including landscape and ecology planting and maintenance.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much was spent on fixing potholes in East Yorkshire in each of the last five years.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Local highway authorities, including the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highway network in their area. Local highway authorities do not have a requirement to routinely inform the Department of their spend on pothole repairs.
During the past five financial years the Department has provided over £73 million to East Riding of Yorkshire Council for local highway maintenance, including the repairs of road defects such as potholes.
Year | Highways Maintenance Block £m | Pothole Action Fund £m | Pothole Fund £m | Total £m |
2019/20 | 10.741 | 0.623 |
| 11.364 |
2020/21 | 10.741 | 0.609 | 7.306 | 18.656 |
2021/22 | 7.663 |
| 6.130 | 13.793 |
2022/23 | 7.663 |
| 6.130 | 13.793 |
2023/24 | 7.663 |
| 8.582[1] | 16.245 |
Total | 44.471 | 1.232 | 28.148 | 73.851 |
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities also provides revenue funding to all local authorities, including the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, via the annual Revenue Support Grant. This is unringfenced and local authorities can use it for local highways maintenance.
[1] Includes East Riding’s share of the extra £200 million for the year 2023/24 announced in the Budget 2023:
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to (a) expand the National Highways tree-planting scheme and (b) replace dead trees planted under the scheme.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
As part of its Net Zero Plan National Highways has committed to planting at least an additional 3 million trees by 2030. This commitment is being delivered now and will continue through RIS2 and beyond.
The early establishment years are particularly challenging for tree success and the early survival rate is very dependent on prevailing climatic conditions. National Highway’s Chief Highway Engineer is overseeing a rewrite of specifications for highways, including landscape and ecology planting and maintenance.
Asked by: Viscount Goschen (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the condition of road infrastructure.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
In addition to the provision of over £5.5 billion of highways maintenance capital funding for local highways authorities in England over this Parliament, the Department works with all local highway authorities in England along with National Highways to assess road surface condition on a national level. This information is presented annually in “Road conditions in England to March 2022” published on GOV.UK. It includes surface condition, skidding resistance and highway maintenance treatments and expenditure.
The Department is also working with the British Standards Institute and the Transport Research Laboratory to develop a new standard for assessing road condition. This will help authorities identify, assess, and deal with road defects, including potholes, and help drive innovation within the road monitoring sector.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much was spent on fixing potholes in Lincolnshire in each of the last five years.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Local highway authorities, including Lincolnshire County Council, have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highways network in their area. Local highway authorities do not routinely inform the Department of their spend on pothole repairs.
During the past five financial years the Department has provided over £207 million to Lincolnshire County Council for highway maintenance, including pothole repair. Note that local authorities are also able to use other funding streams, in addition, for highway maintenance.
Year | Highways Maintenance Block £m | Pothole Action Fund £m | Pothole Fund £m | Total £m |
2019/20 | 30.952 | 1.642 |
| 32.594 |
2020/21 | 30.952 | 1.608 | 19.301 | 51.861 |
2021/22 | 21.513 |
| 17.210 | 38.723 |
2022/23 | 21.513 |
| 17.210 | 38.723 |
2023/24 | 28.397 |
| 17.210 | 45.607 |
Total | 133.327 | 3.250 | 70.931 | 207.508 |
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they monitor whether local authorities are using funds provided by central Government for repairing potholes for that purpose.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department for Transport (DfT) allocates capital funding to local highways authorities under Section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003 (“the Act”) so that they can most effectively spend this funding on maintaining and improving their respective networks, based upon their local knowledge, circumstances, and priorities.
Section 31 grant funding is not ringfenced as set out in the Act; it is up to the highway authority how to spend this funding to fulfil its statutory duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980. Local decision makers are democratically accountable for the decisions they take.
DfT strongly encourages authorities to spend their allocations on highways maintenance activities and advocates a risk-based whole lifecycle asset management approach to local authority highways maintenance programmes. This considers all parts of the highway network, such as gulleys, bridges, cycleways, and lighting columns – and not just the fixing of potholes.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to encourage local highway authorities to fund equipment that automatically detects the length, width and depth of potholes.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highways network in their area. The Act does not set out specific standards of maintenance, as it is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards should be applied, based upon their local knowledge, needs, and circumstances. The Government has no powers to override local decisions in these matters.
By working with the UK Roads Leadership Group and other sector bodies, the Department for Transport encourages local highway authorities to be innovative by, for example, using different materials or new machinery; or by developing new ways of working. The Department engages regularly with local authorities to discuss and disseminate the results of trials of this sort and supports innovation in other ways including through the ADEPT Live Labs programme that is funded by the Department.
In terms of wider pothole prevention, a Lane Rental Scheme (LRS) is a tool to help highway authorities reduce the impact of works taking place on the busiest roads at the busiest times – those are likely to include key junctions and other pinch-points, plus the busiest and most congested stretches of road. Under an LRS, utility companies (and others undertaking Street works) working on such roads at peak times are required to pay a daily charge to the local highway authority for the duration of their works.
The charges paid to the local authority responsible for the scheme may be used to pay the costs for running the scheme, with any surplus monies raised to be spent in ways for purposes intended to reduce the disruption or other adverse effects arising because of works, including road defects created by utility companies.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the effectiveness of current litter performance indicators pertaining to value for money and customer satisfaction with highway maintenance; and, if they do not have one, whether they will make one.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
In the second Road Investment Strategy (2020-25) National Highways were allocated £6.5bn for the operation and maintenance of the Strategic Road Network (SRN). A proportion of this funding will be allocated within National Highways to carry out its litter clearance duties. For 2021/22 National Highways reported that 60.8% of its network was predominately free of litter, refuse or detritus apart from some small items, in line with the Code of practice on litter and refuse published by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This was an improvement from 49.2% reported for 2020/21. The performance for 2022/23 will be published later this summer.
Customer satisfaction of the SRN is provided through the Strategic Road User Survey (SRUS) which is undertaken by Transport Focus, the independent watchdog for transport users. For period April 22 to March 23, 73% of those surveyed were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the overall safety, condition and management of the road network.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are giving to local authorities to address accidents caused by pot holes.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
In Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland responsibility for maintaining the highway rests with the respective devolved administration.
In England, local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the public highway network in their area.
In addition to the capital highways maintenance funding provided by Government, the Department works with the highways sector to produce guidance and best practice and encourages good practice in local highways asset management. The Department endorses the UK Roads Leadership Group’s ‘Well Managed Highway Infrastructure: A Code of Practice’. This provides guidance for highway authorities to consider when managing and maintaining the highways infrastructure assets for which they are responsible.
In addition, the Government commissioned ‘Potholes: a repair guide’, published by the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) in March 2019.
In the 2022 Autumn Statement, the Chancellor confirmed the three-year settlement announced at Spending Review 2021: approximately £915 million capital funding per year for local highways maintenance for local highway authorities across England outside of London and the mayoral combined authorities who are in receipt of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS).
In addition, at Budget 2023 the Chancellor announced an extra £200 million for highways maintenance for the 2023/24 financial year.