Olly Glover

Olly Glover

Liberal Democrat — Didcot and Wantage

Speaking in the House of Commons on 17 March 2026

Debate

Rural Roads

Contribution

Councils certainly can do more to better spend the community infrastructure levy, but that partly takes account of the wildly complicated planning system and the negotiations that are needed with developers for both that and section 106. Perhaps the Minister could share what the Government are doing to learn from other countries and to look at better approaches to road design, maintenance and repair. From my travels in, for example, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, potholes are either unknown or very rare. If I can briefly deviate from my usual tendencies towards pessimism and cynicism, and lead my colleagues to wonder about my wellbeing, in an ideal world I wonder whether this debate shows that we should try to move away from pretending that the main issue is who, from a party perspective, runs our councils. It is far more about central Government versus local government, how our local government is structured and funded, and unsustainable local government expectations, given the funding that they are provided. We need significant reform on that, so that we can get our roads in a better place.

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