England’s roads are in a sorry state. Whether it is the potholes that require ‘evasive maneuvers’ on the school run to the bumps, cracks and overflowing gullies that make the commute to work feel like an off-road driving experience, the condition of our roads is unacceptable.
Last week I led an adjournment debate on the condition of roads in my home county of Cheshire where I am the Member of Parliament for Chester South and Eddisbury. I did so because I, like most if not all MPs, get many emails from frustrated constituents about the state of our roads. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has told me about one pothole that has been identified and marked for repair literally next to another one that will remain untouched. Only for the other one to deteriorate and for the cycle to commence again – this is the managed decline of our highways and my constituents in Chester South and Eddisbury and people across the country deserve better.
The stories shared with me by constituents impacted by our crumbling roads illustrates the scale of the problem. In my speech I referred to a constituent of mine, David, who runs a taxi company just outside Tarporley, a rural village in Cheshire. For him a pothole is not a minor inconvenience, it is potentially a car out of service, a loss of income and customers let down. Or Paul, an avid cyclist, who faces the dangers of potholes as drivers swerve to avoid them or as he swerves potholes that have not been repaired because they are ‘too far from the centre of the road’.
There are villages in my constituency plagued by potholes, like Wrenbury-cum-Frith, temporarily renamed Wrenbury-cum-Pothole. The village made national headlines for its 650 feet of road with 174 potholes on a road which runs through the centre of the village. These are just a few examples from my constituency but I know there are similar stories across the country.
The Public Accounts Committee recently published a report on the condition and maintenance of local roads in England. It showed that this problem is widespread and a national crisis. The Department for Transport appears to exist in blissful ignorance of the problem at hand. In his response to me in concluding my adjournment debate, the Minister reeled off the investments that the Government has made in highways. He must have missed the part of my speech where I demonstrated, using the example of Cheshire West and Chester Council, the ineffectiveness of more money being put into a broken system. More investment does not necessarily equate to fewer potholes. In the case of Cheshire West and Chester Council, is more potholes, greater compensations claims and more potholes – indicative of a broken system.
So how can we address this national crisis?
The solution, in my opinion, is implementing a strategy that can be summed up in four words: proactive rather than reactive. Why wait for a pothole to deteriorate until it is deep enough to cause damage? Why conduct a piecemeal, patch-up approach rather than a long-term preventative and cost-effective strategy that delivers better value for money for the taxpayer? Since 2016 council tax in Cheshire West and Chester has gone up by 4.99% year on year. Cheshire East Council asked permission from the Government to raise council tax for this year by a staggering 9.99% owing to its exceptionally poor financial situation. And what do residents get for this? More potholes, more damage to vehicles and a poorer highways service. Local authorities such as those in Cheshire need to start taking a more proactive approach so the pothole problem can be addressed properly and in turn compensation bills are reduced.
In my speech I also called for a fairer allocation of funding. As an MP for a constituency which includes a large rural community, I know all too well about the disparity in funding that sees capital channeled towards urban projects rather than getting the basics fixed in rural areas. Wybunbury, a rural ward in my constituency, has not seen a penny of the £53 million allocated to Cheshire East Council’s Highways Department. I referred in my speech to Newcastle Road in Wybunbury as an example of a consequence of an anti-rural mentality. I will continue to fight for a fairer allocation of funding for rural roads.
So rather than accepting the status quo, the constant decline and the wasted money, the Government should join me and other colleagues in advocating for a better approach to road repairs so that our constituents have a better, safer road system; one that they can be confident in.
Our Roads Are Crumbling — And I’m Fighting for Action
