Contribution
This Government believe in devolution. It is for local councils, elected by local people, to decide their own priorities.
I know we have spent a lot of time talking about potholes this evening, and despite all the attention they get and the headlines they generate, potholes are only a small part of what local highway authorities are dealing with. Local highway authorities have to look after complex networks of pavements, cycle lanes, bridges, tunnels, lighting columns, drainage channels, culverts, retaining walls and much else besides. Potholes are just the tip of a very large iceberg, but they are the thing that is most visible to road users, whether they are in a car, on a bike, or being jarred while sitting on a bus. Yes, we are asking local authorities to give us their best estimate of the number of potholes they have filled in recent years. We also want them to tell us what they are doing to shift their focus to long-term preventive maintenance, because avoiding potholes forming in the first place is, as the Public Accounts Committee recognised, generally much better value for money than temporarily patching the same pothole again and again once it has become a safety-critical problem.
Let me move on to street works and to what we are doing to respond to the complaints that our roads often seem to be dug up again and again by utility companies in an unco-ordinated way. It is the responsibility of the highway authority to co-ordinate any works taking place on its roads. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) rightly described the cost of failing to do so for local people and businesses. We are committed to ensuring that the proper policy framework is in place to enable authorities to co-ordinate and plan road and street works effectively. My hon. Friends the Members for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) and for Stafford will be pleased to hear that we have recently announced that we will be doing more to hold utilities to account for disruptive works. We will be doubling fixed penalty notices to increase the level of deterrent they provide and improve compliance. Charges will also be applied at weekends and on bank holidays to reduce congestion and disruption during those times.
Lane rental can help highway authorities to reduce the impact of works taking place on the busiest roads at the busiest times. Schemes allow authorities to charge utilities up to £2,500 per day for works on those roads, encouraging companies to work smarter. We know that many more councils are developing lane rental schemes, and we plan to update our guidance to help them develop those schemes. We have announced changes that mean that highway authorities will be required to spend at least 50% of surplus funds raised from lane rental on road maintenance.
To conclude, I repeat my thanks to all hon. Members who have contributed to what has been a rich and positive debate. We all want to see an improvement to the state of our local roads, pavements and other parts of our highways networks. I doubt that this will be the last time we discuss potholes, but this Government are determined to give local authorities the tools and resources they need to get on top of the problem. We want local councils to be more transparent about what they are doing with taxpayers’ money, and we want them to follow best practice. We want councils to learn from each other and benchmark each other’s performance, so that the overall standard of delivery is driven up. Getting on top of the backlog in local highway maintenance is a high priority for this Government. We recognise that there are tough choices here for councils, but getting more potholes fixed was a manifesto commitment and one we are determined to deliver. We have hit the ground running but I know that there is a lot more still to do. I will say more in a few months’ time about the longer term funding outlook for all local authorities. We look forward to working with councils over the months ahead to ensure that our funding uplift is making a real difference to all our constituents.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered road maintenance.