Potholes: Suffolk
Wednesday, 4 November 2026
Contributions
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)Conservative
I beg to move, That this House has considered potholes and road maintenance in Suffolk. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker, and I thank everybody for staying a little bit later as the House rises and everyone disappears on recess. I will be honest: upon being elected, my focus was fighting for better schools in Ipswich and rural NHS services in Suffolk, as well as supporting small and independent businesses. I never for a moment imagined that I would become immersed in the issue of road maintenance—but, of course, events changed that. Over the past 12 months, the condition of roads across my constituency has deteriorated massively, largely as a consequence of three major problems that have perfectly converged. First, extreme weather exacerbates fractures in the road surface. This is commonly known as the freeze-thaw cycle, and involves rainwater seeping into cracks before freezing in sub-zero temperatures, expanding in the process. In November 2025, there was some 107 mm of rain across Suffolk, followed by a significant cold snap; temperatures on the night of 20 November dropped well below 0°C and overnight frosts continued for the rest of December, somewhat unsurprisingly for that time of year. Those conditions wreak havoc on our roads. Secondly, there has been a significant uptick in heavy-duty traffic across Suffolk roads, a consequence of increased activity at the Sizewell C site as well as increased housing construction across the county. On any day there can be between 500 and 600 heavy-duty vehicles, some with police escorts and carrying abnormally large loads, using the A12 between Martlesham and Leiston. Then there has been a proliferation of new housing developments, bringing more activity of heavy goods vehicles along quiet country roads. East Suffolk’s housing target has gone from approximately 800 homes per year to more than 1,600. Mid Suffolk has also seen its housing target more than double. Grundisburgh, Framlingham, Wickham Market and Debenham are all expanding towns with ancient road networks connecting them to the outside world. The point of my speech is not to bemoan the impact that construction is having on residents—that is for a different day. Nor is it to question the ongoing commitment by Sizewell C to managing congestion on the A12—a topic it is very much alive to and trying to manage. It is to highlight the impact that development and other things are having on the road surfaces around our county. The third cause of poor road conditions across Suffolk in recent years, in my opinion, is a shift in the way we allocate capital. The A12 was partially de-trunked in 2001, meaning that everything north of Ipswich fell in strategic importance and priority. It joined the A1120 and other arterial roads under the responsibility of the local highways authority, which spent years dealing with short-term funding arrangements, and then inflation eroded longer-term pay deals. I said this morning to the BBC that this debate should not be about point scoring, so I pay credit to Suffolk county council: progress has been made in recent years in dealing with the problem. Between 2021 and 2025, the council repaired some 88,329 potholes. Each year, more potholes were repaired than were reported, showing that the council was not only responding to new issues, but dealing with existing defects.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)Democratic Unionist Party
The hon. Gentleman is bringing forward an issue in Suffolk, but the fact of the matter is that potholes are a major issue in all our constituencies. Is he aware of a new system for repairing potholes? I understand that there will be a cost outlay, but the return is that it fixes the potholes more quickly, more efficiently and better. If we have a better system of doing it, is it not time for the Government to encourage all councils to use that new system, to ensure that potholes are repaired better and more quickly and the issue for the motorist is taken away sooner?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment; either he has read my speech or, as usual, he is far ahead of the curve, because I will get on to talk about the Dragon Patcher and the JCB Pothole Pro later on. He is absolutely right. To get back to where I was going, today only 3% of Suffolk’s A road network is in poor condition. That is better than the English average, with the proportion in good condition broadly aligned to national figures. Suffolk’s B and C roads also outperform national averages, with a high share in good condition and significantly fewer in poor condition. Of course residents are still angry about the state of the roads and disruption caused by roadworks. I am one of those residents. I have to drive on those roads—fortunately not every day of the week, because I am here. We use our country roads to get our children to and from school every day, so I know exactly what it is like to regularly dodge potholes. That is why we are debating how we can improve the situation. As I said recently, I recognise that the Department for Transport has substantially increased—actually, astronomically increased—funding for potholes. That should be recognised. However, I also know that the Department gave Suffolk county council a red warning for road maintenance performance in January 2026, as part of its new accountability mechanism for highways authorities. I am in favour of holding public bodies to account—it is a good thing—but it is unfortunate that in this situation the Department managed to make a slight mess of the methodology. What lessons have been learned from that process? I am wary of a system that ranks a local authority as failing when the condition of its road network is above average. I am aware of the same fraught issue in the school system, where schools that achieve very good grades are ranked as failing by Ofsted, so I understand that it is complicated. The traffic light system includes a decarbonisation test. Councils lose five points from their best practice score if they fail to provide evidence of plans to decarbonise maintenance operations and increase climate resilience. What remedial support will be made available to local authorities that do not fare well on the interactive map? There have been confusing stories of support given to high-performing local authorities, while failing ones are offered expert advice. Expert advice is almost always useless when resources are not meeting demand. Will the Minister confirm what steps the Government will take to help local authorities such as Suffolk when they are judged to be not fulfilling their statutory role? The purpose of this speech is to look to the future and probe this Government’s position on a number of ways in which our road network—not just in Suffolk but across the country—might be remediated in the long term. As I said, I recognise that the Government have provided more than £7 billion for road maintenance over the next four years, and that that will kick up slightly to £2 billion a year. It is absolutely right that we recognise that that is a significant increase in funding. Much in the same way, it is right that we recognise that it is still less than what the Conservatives committed in their 2024 manifesto, which would have delivered more than £2 billion per year straightaway. I wish to ask the Government whether they will go further on a raft of issues. First, will they take reasonable steps to ensure that highways authorities have access to technology and machinery that are imperative to the quick remediation of potholes in country settings? Suffolk county council has recently deployed a JCB Pothole Pro, which I believe is on loan from JCB, and before that it leased a Dragon Patcher. These are short-term and unstable arrangements. If we want to deal with the proliferation of potholes, it strikes me as eminently sensible that local authorities are given the financial support to use the best technology available. It is worth noting that the Conservative plan for drivers, launched by the Leader of the Opposition in April 2026, commits to a national pothole patrol, with a national taskforce deploying hundreds of specialist repair units and using technology such as the JCB Pothole Pro, to fix roads faster. Secondly, there is no doubt that British roads are in a worse condition than European comparators. RAC Europe published a survey in 2024 in which six in 10 motorists said that local roads in Europe were in better condition, with fewer potholes, than the equivalent roads in the UK. Only a fifth thought that UK roads were in better shape than those on the continent, and 57% of all drivers believed that there were fewer potholes on the motorways in Europe relative to high-speed motorways in the UK. Plenty of people therefore wonder why we do not deploy the same road maintenance strategies as other countries. Germany, the Swiss and the French have more efficient and more technologically advanced approaches to managing road maintenance. However, the British Government do not hold data on how long councils take to repair potholes. Ministers cannot tell us whether drivers are waiting longer than they used to for repairs. We rarely deploy road maintenance teams overnight on country roads. While we give utility companies the power to start work immediately through immediate emergency permits, we do not hold contractors to account for fast delivery of road maintenance works. I am inundated, as I am sure other Members are, with complaints from local residents who see traffic management mitigations in place way before and way after workers are seen tending to remedial works. Our roads are already clogged up with utility companies carrying out work on gas pipes or broadband wiring, under strict regulations, at low cost and involving different teams over long periods. This all strikes me as a classic example of British bureaucracy having a hugely negative impact on the state of British roads and our economy. The BBC published a report in 2026 that stated that traffic disruption linked to roadworks cost the UK economy £4 billion between 2022 and 2023. What can the Government do to relax the rules and regulations around road maintenance, so that companies can carry out works at night, quickly and with as little disruption as possible? Thirdly, I think that everyone, whichever side of the House they sit on, recognises that a lack of skills is blighting the road infrastructure network. A 2023 report by the Local Council Roads Innovation Group said that training budgets had dwindled—unsurprisingly, in the face of prioritisation for other areas of the road maintenance budget; that the quality of technical training was considered substandard, with a bizarre over-emphasis on net zero; and that the road infrastructure sector struggled with an image problem, such that fewer young people considered it as a potential career option, resulting in an ageing workforce. Thirty-six per cent of people in the road infrastructure construction sector are aged 55 or over. I read in a report online that there are some 140,000 vacancies, despite a population of people not in education, employment or training of more than a million. I cannot believe that there is not an easy solution to the problem of skills in the road maintenance sector, considering the underlying structure of our labour market at the moment. If we do not have the people, we will not be able to tackle an issue where scale is the major challenge. What are the Government doing to encourage young people into the transport infrastructure sector and specifically the road infrastructure sector? Lastly, I want to probe the Government’s position on the long-term de-trunking of strategically important roads. I said at the beginning of my speech that the A12 north of Ipswich was de-trunked in 2001. I am still perplexed as to why it has not been redesignated as a critically important road, given that we are building two nuclear reactors just off it. The German road network is more centrally managed than ours—and, by the way, it is far better managed as a result. If National Highways has longer-term funding visibility, as it now does, why would it not want to broaden its remit and look after more elements of our road network? Before I conclude, let me tie all this up into what I think is an increasingly obvious perspective: all of the above is futile if our economy does not grow. I will say that this Government—the Labour Government—made the right decision by increasing funding. It was a mistake—a fundamental mistake, albeit a consequence of the economic situation we faced in 2010—to cut budgets. I am sure that all Government Members are raring to go after my speech identifying a load of problems with our road network that began before 2024; that is not lost on me. I implore the Minister, and all other Members, not to give me an easy time, but to take this opportunity to rise somewhat above the “it was all down to cuts, innit?” attitude. I know the Minister comes from a place that believes borrowing to spend on infrastructure will drive long-term growth, but growth will not emerge without this Government getting to grips with debt, the deficit, our welfare budget and bringing down taxes on businesses. We have a proud history of being at the forefront of the revolution that transformed road use, when Thomas Telford and John McAdam started building roads with all-weather surfaces. There is no reason why we cannot repeat history and become the best country in the world for roads. I thank hon. Members for their time.
Paula Barker (in the Chair)Labour
Order. Due to the earlier Division, the revised end time for this debate is 5.40 pm.
Dr Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)Labour
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) for securing this debate. I would like to invite all Members to take a journey along the A143 between Ixworth and Stanton in my constituency. I would recommend a sturdy vehicle with good suspension and at least one spare tyre. This summer, the road made headlines all over the world, because it was literally melting. After months of closures, disruptions, repairs and long diversions, residents might reasonably have expected a road they could drive on, but I am sad to say that the potholes are already back. There are slices of Swiss cheese with fewer holes than the A143. Sadly, convention in this place does not allow me to show the drone video created by my assistant Mr Tom Howard, but it is available on all good social media channels. I urge hon. Members to take a look. The Reform administration at Suffolk county council came into office promising a war on potholes. Several months into the war, I have to report that the potholes are winning convincingly. How frustrating is that? The Labour Government delivered a record £7.3 billion for local road maintenance for four years, giving councils the funding and certainty to deliver lasting improvements. The money is being provided and the tools are there, yet in Reform-run Suffolk we still see the same roads being repaired again and again. Residents do not care much for party politics or party political slogans when they are dodging potholes on the school run. They simply want safe roads, lasting repairs and value for money. I wrote directly to the leader of Suffolk county council asking for answers and a permanent solution. We need to know why the repairs have failed so quickly and who is accountable. Is Suffolk county council demanding compensation from the contractor? The people of Suffolk are not asking for gold-plated roads. They are simply asking for roads where the tarmac stays down and the potholes stay filled.
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)Labour (Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I think this is the second time my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) has invited Members of this House to visit his constituency. I am a regular visitor—it is a beautiful part of the world—and I thank him for all that he is doing on the issue and on Haughley junction, which I will come on to. Every week, I am out talking to local residents who raise the same issue over and over again: potholes. People in Ipswich and Suffolk are fed up. Frankly, they have every right to be. This is not something that has occurred just in the past year; this comes after years of under-investment. As my hon. Friend articulated so well, it is leaving rough and unpredictable surfaces that leave drivers with burst tyres, buckled wheels and expensive repairs. Cyclists are forced into rush hour traffic to avoid dangerous craters. Parents are late to work because the school run has revealed a new hole in the road. For people across Ipswich and Suffolk, the state of our road network is not merely an inconvenience; it is a daily source of frustration, cost and, in some cases, genuine danger. That is why the publication of the Government’s road maintenance audit earlier this year was so important. For the first time, we have an objective measure of how councils are performing in maintaining our roads. Results for Suffolk were incredibly disappointing, although not surprising for anybody who uses our roads. Suffolk received an overall red rating, placing it among the worst-performing highways authorities in the country. We have to be honest about what, and who, is culpable. Is it the Conservatives at Suffolk county council, who until May this year were in power for more than two decades? Was it their incompetence that led to one of the worst ratings in the country, or was it the Conservative Government here in Westminster who were in power for 14 years and starved Suffolk and its roads of the investment it needed? This is not just a little bit of rain; it is huge underfunding. Between 2011 and 2020, Suffolk’s annual highways allocation was cut from more than £22 million to £17.5 million. I can only presume that whatever fantasy unicorns might have been in the 2024 general election manifesto should go in the same bucket as the unfunded hospitals and the Ely-Haughley upgrade that was announced three times but never funded. We cannot really believe any of it, given that the Conservatives had 14 years in power and their record was one of cutting funding. Admittedly, it crept up a little towards the end of their time in office, as the general election loomed, but by then it was too little, too late. The result was entirely predictable: short-term fixes became the norm, roads deteriorated and taxpayers ended up paying more in the long run. That is the consequence when incompetence and lack of interest are married with a complete lack of funding. I am pleased that our Government are taking a fundamentally different approach. To make that possible, as I am sure the Minister will mention, we are investing £7.3 billion in local roads over four years and doubling national road maintenance funding by the end of this Parliament. That is the biggest investment in road maintenance our country has ever seen, and it includes record funding for Suffolk. Over the next four years, our county will receive £219 million to improve and maintain local roads. By 2029-30, funding will reach nearly £65 million a year, nearly quadruple what it was under the Conservatives in 2020. That is not a modest uplift, tinkering around the edges or a temporary sticking-plaster; it represents a fundamental change in how our roads are funded. Instead of the hand-to-mouth approach of yearly settlements that we had under the Conservatives, this is a long-term funding commitment so that councils such as Suffolk county council will know exactly what they are getting for the next four years and can plan ahead. Instead of endless patch-and-mend repairs, they will have the certainty and resources to plan long-term improvements and prevent potholes in the first place, which is what we all want to see. That is the difference between the managed decline that we saw under the Conservatives, and the investment and renewal under our Government. Investment alone, however, is not enough; delivery also matters. I will slightly depart from the assessment of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket. The new Reform administration at Suffolk county council did not create this mess—that lies squarely with the Conservatives, locally and nationally—but it has inherited record road maintenance funding and now has the responsibility to right the wrongs that have been evident in the system for years. It has the resources and now the certainty, and residents rightly expect to see results. Pothole-riddled roads in Suffolk are not the county’s only transport challenge. I am delighted about the package of measures that the Government have allocated to our county, including £9 million to improve bus services, the biggest upgrade since 1998. They are investing £4.5 million for active travel, which includes improved walking and cycling provision, and committed nearly £55 million in funding for upgrades around the A12/A14 Seven Hills roundabout. These are significant investments, but of course I want more. On Ely-Haughley, for example, there is a single point of failure in Suffolk, which is the Orwell bridge—
Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman to remain within the scope of the debate, please?
I was about to say that road maintenance relies on transport infrastructure, which is why Ely-Haughley is so important. The Ely-Haughley scheme will take 100,000 HGVs off the road, which is incredibly important, but it is not a like-for-like replacement for the Orwell bridge, which is crossed by more than 12,000 HGVs a day coming from one of the world’s busiest container ports. That is a crucial piece of infrastructure. We have a job to do locally to make sure we renew the business case, which is now half a decade old, and see whether we can reduce the number of level crossings. The scheme has my wholehearted support, and support across the House, but we have a job to do in our local system. I am pleased that Transport East in particular has grasped the nettle.
I have a sense of déjà vu. I feel I have said this to the hon. Member before, but it is incumbent on me to remind him that his party is now in government, with a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer. Last week was the third opportunity for this Government to fund Ely-Haughley. I accept that it was not done by the previous Government, but he cannot just repeat some tired line like “You didn’t do it, so I shouldn’t be expected to do it either.” If it is so important, why is the hon. Member sitting here shouting at all of us, when it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer he needs to make this point to?
I appreciate that the hon. Member has not been in Parliament for a while, so he may not be aware of the conversations that we have been having across the system. He is absolutely right to point out that the previous Conservative Government pledged three times to move ahead with Ely-Haughley but did not allocate a single penny of funding. It is also the case, however, that we have met consistently with the Rail Minister about this issue. The business case that was put forward for Ely-Haughley is now half a decade out of date. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) can continue shaking his head, but this is the reality, and I am giving strong feedback. This is feedback, by the way, that Transport East has grasped, that the Cambridgeshire mayoral authority knows and that our chamber of commerce knows, so it seems that everybody apart from the hon. Member is aware of the detail here. We have been asked, as a local system, to update the business case, because how can we reasonably ask the Government to fund something half a decade out of date, from before the Liz Truss mini-Budget? How can we reduce the number of level crossings along the Ely stretch, which will also reduce the cost of this important infrastructure scheme? Is there any private investment that we can put into it, in a similar way to the lower Thames crossing? Can we build up wider regional support for the scheme? The ball is in our court. Every single stakeholder locally knows that and is advancing with that. The other thing I would say is that Suffolk has to get serious. Collectively, we have to get serious when we pitch for funding. We are competing against every single region and nation in this country. To sit there and amateurishly keep demanding the same thing, over and over again— [ Interruption. ]
Order. Can I remind Members to be mindful of their tone, please?
Absolutely. But to make the same amateurish demands time and again, without doing any of the straightforward things that have been clearly asked of us, is not feasible. That is why, collectively, the local system is heading towards the spending review and is making sure that we are doing the things that have been asked of us at a local level. I hope that the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich will listens to some of this and reflects on it, and that he will join with Transport East, the mayoral combined authority, the chambers of commerce and Members of all parties across the House on this. It does not look as though he is going to do that, which is unfortunate, because we could use all power to the wheel. What I was going on to say, before I was interrupted, was about the fact that the Ely-Haughley upgrade is incredibly important. We want to move freight from HGVs on to our rail network. However, that is not a silver bullet for our local road system. As I say, 12,000 HGVs a day cross the Orwell bridge. We also have the Copdock junction, which I have talked to the previous Roads Minister about on a number of occasions. It is a crucial pinch point in our local road network, and one that impacts on Felixstowe. I am really hoping that we can move it forward in a future road investment strategy programme, after it was pushed from RIS3 to RIS4. However, we have structural weaknesses within our road network. Although those schemes are incredibly important, there still seems to be a single point of failure in the Orwell bridge. Every time the bridge closes, Ipswich and the surrounding area grind to a halt. That pushes HGVs on to our country roads and unsuitable road networks, which creates an even bigger problem for road maintenance. Residents sit in traffic for hours, businesses lose money, emergency services are delayed and our local economy pays the price too.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)Labour
I welcome the Government’s significant investment in potholes—£7 billion across this Parliament—but we have not yet talked about the impact that potholes have on pedestrians. In my constituency, residents have fallen in potholes while walking across roads, and wheelchair users and people with visual impairments have been injured while trying to traverse potholed roads. Does my hon. Friend agree that when we talk about investment in potholes, we need to consider accessibility and pavements as well? Issues have been raised with me about Owston Ferry, Norman Drive and Coppice Road. We need to tackle those with our investment too.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that it is about not just the roads but the surrounding infrastructure, including our pavements. I walk the streets every weekend and the roads and pavements alike are in an incredibly poor state, so I hope the whole road maintenance network is looked at. It is incredibly important that the Reform county council gets to work fixing those potholes, but we will keep coming back to this place time and again if we do not also deliver major infrastructure, such as the Ely and Haughley junctions and the Copdock interchange. As I say, I welcome the investment in the Seven Hills roundabout too. To finish my point on the Orwell bridge, we also need to address that single point of failure, which is impacting our local economy. It is not just a bit of traffic; HGVs are being pushed on to unsuitable roads, including through our villages. That is why a northern bypass for Ipswich is so critical, not just for our town’s traffic but for the long-term future of Felixstowe and our surrounding economy. A northern bypass is the only credible solution to that single point of failure, as a WSP report has previously outlined. It is incumbent on our local system to deliver it. The Reform county council has finally reopened work on it, six years after it was shelved with no credible alternative put forward. I hope that when that work reports back in the spring, we can go to Ministers and push ahead with that vital project. For now, our residents deserve safe, reliable, well-maintained roads, and our businesses deserve infrastructure that supports growth rather than holding it back. The Government are doing their part, and the funding and opportunity are there for our county council. However, the new administration must now get on with the job and deliver the roads that the people of Ipswich and Suffolk deserve.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)Liberal Democrat
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) on securing this debate. Incidentally, he may find the Transport Committee’s recent inquiry into street works of interest; the Committee considered the issue in depth and made a number of recommendations to the Government, which I ask the Minister to refer to in his remarks. Despite being a Norfolk MP, I am very pleased to represent the Liberal Democrats in this important debate. I feel perhaps uniquely qualified, thanks to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley), who advised thick tyres and a robust vehicle for Suffolk’s roads; I have indulged myself in an agricultural vehicle to get around Norfolk for the same reason. I am only too pleased to speak about the challenges we share with our neighbours south of the border. I have been shocked by the evidence of the deteriorating state of Suffolk’s roads, which, unbelievably, are even worse than Norfolk’s. According to the BBC, pothole reports rose by nearly 5,000 in a single year and, as I think the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) noted, earlier this year Suffolk was rated red in the Government’s road maintenance ratings. For locals, that is just not good enough, and I think they know whom to thank for it. I will be gracious in responding to the request from the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich that I be gentle—he has at least turned up to propose this debate—but the Reform administration at the council, and his colleagues who preceded it, have presided over this abject failure in recent months and years. Drivers already facing soaring prices at the petrol pump thanks to the war in Iran—which Reform and, I gently say, the Conservatives were cheerleading—now face the cost of repairing cars damaged by potholes on local roads too. [Valerie Vaz in the Chair ] What is even tougher for Suffolk residents is that it does not have to be this way. Colleagues in this room might all be dashing for the same train back to East Anglia this evening, but I gently encourage them to look across the border to Liberal Democrat-led Cambridgeshire county council, which is fixing four times as many potholes as Suffolk. That is a prime example of how communities that elect Lib Dem local champions get better services, better roads and a better council. My worry is that, instead of learning from Cambridgeshire, Suffolk might learn from the Reform administration in Norfolk, whose management of the highways budget is frankly laughable. Reform swanned in and abolished the ring-fenced £11,000 fund that each member had for highways projects in their division. From my time as a county councillor—I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I know the impact that that funding had in local communities. It was not just about fixing potholes: we supported village gates for Melton Constable, a bus shelter and lay-by in Saxthorpe, speed awareness message, or SAM2, cameras for the A148, which has led to a project to cut the speed limit on that dangerous road, and much more. That local members’ fund was instrumental in improving road quality in Norfolk, and it should be preserved and extended in Suffolk. The Reform administration claimed that robbing the ringfenced funding from Norfolk was needed to fund general highways maintenance and repairs, but in recent days we have seen its budget consultation, which proposes cutting a further £500,000 from highways maintenance and reducing the verge cutting on some rural roads to only once a year. That is disastrous mismanagement of our county’s roads, and the Reform administration, propped up by Restore Britain, ought to be ashamed of itself. I share that tale as a word of warning to colleagues in Suffolk; on this occasion, they should ensure that they do not listen to their friends in the north in Norfolk. It is unclear whether there is much friendship left between the administrations. Rather than focusing on fixing the state of Suffolk’s roads, the Reform administrations in our two counties have been locked in a battle about when to hold elections for the future mayor of Norfolk and Suffolk. That is highly pertinent to road safety, given the powers that will be bestowed on the office. Our endlessly delayed devolution deal faces yet more hold-ups, because Reform administrations are fighting one another, and residents are paying the price. They are watching on as the people’s front of Reform and the Reform people’s front stand off, shouting, “Splitters!” across the border at each other while the potholes grow, the road markings wear away and the services paid for by residents’ council tax are simply not delivered to the standard that they expect. Poorly maintained roads are a misery for motorists. In rural communities, where there is no choice other than greater car use, they will see this issue impact on them even harder. It causes issues for public transport delivery, as poor-quality roads make it harder for bus operators to run reliable services to the rural villages that need them the most. This is not just a clichéd moan; this is one of the ways in which Government failure wears people down in rural areas and makes them feel that they are being given a worse deal than people in cities. I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, as I know that colleagues from Suffolk are keen to hear how the Government intend to address the challenges that they face. Let me end with a message of solidarity from their friends and football rivals over the northern border. We are suffering with a Reform council too, and the best cure that I can see is to elect a Liberal Democrat council instead.
Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)Labour
Order. I remind Members that the debate is about potholes and road maintenance.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)Conservative
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I pay credit to the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker), who chaired the debate earlier. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) on securing this important debate. He is a true champion for his constituents, and I am sure that they will appreciate his work in bringing the challenges that they face with potholes to this place. Let me reflect on some of the speeches that we have heard. I find myself sitting opposite the Minister for not the first time this week, as we were in the Highways (Financing) Bill Committee earlier this week. We previously sat together on what was then the Business and Trade Committee, and I sit on an all-party parliamentary group with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley). I want to reflect on some of the real positives of cross-party working, as Westminster Hall has the ability to demonstrate to our constituents how well we can work together. The speeches that we have heard today were a little honey and vinegar—that is perhaps the best way of putting it. I think that honey, rather than vinegar, tends to achieve the desired results. It was absolutely delightful to go on a journey in my imagination of melting Swiss cheese in Suffolk with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, although perhaps that journey is not delightful for the people actually doing it. It was disappointing to hear the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) be less parliamentary and collegiate. I felt rather let down by that, given the way in which Westminster Hall can really bring this place together. The conditions of our roads have a direct impact on the lives of all our constituents. Many depend on our roads to get to work, take their children to school, attend medical appointments and run their businesses. In rural communities such as those in west Suffolk, there is often no alternative to travelling by car, yet for many drivers dodging potholes has become part of the daily routine. Every journey brings the frustration of trying to avoid another jolt or an expensive repair bill. The RAC estimates that hitting a pothole can leave motorists—I include myself—facing a bill of up to £590 for damage that is simply not their fault. For cyclists and motorcyclists, the consequences can be much worse. When the same potholes remain week after week, people understandably wonder when anything will be done. They put up with diversions and road closures while repairs take place, only to see the surface break up again. They want repairs that last. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich raised the particular challenges that face west Suffolk. He rightly praised the excellent record of Suffolk county council’s previous Conservative administration, which repaired more potholes than were reported each year.
I appreciate what the hon. Member is saying about the previous Conservative administration at Suffolk county council, but they were the ones who received a red rating while in charge—one of the worst ratings in the whole country. That is not much of a record to be proud of, is it?
I thank the hon. Member for his point. I simply refer him to the speech that I am making. My point is about potholes. The council demonstrably repaired more potholes than were reported each year. Recently, the issue in west Suffolk has got worse, and pothole reports across the country rose from just under 14,000 in 2024-25 to more than 18,000 in 2025-26. It is a familiar picture in my West Sussex constituency. The county council received almost 24,000 pothole reports last year, up by more than a quarter on the year before. My constituents in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton want roads they can rely on. When they report a pothole, they expect it to be fixed and for that to be that. They should not have to report the same issue again a few months later. It is all the more frustrating when the council’s own figures show that the average cost of repairing a pothole rose from about £82 in 2024-25 to £118 in 2025-26. Returning to Suffolk, the A143 between Stanton and Ixworth was resurfaced in September last year, as we heard from the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket.
Order. The hon. Member is slightly beyond the conventional time limit of five minutes. I ask that she bring her remarks to a close.
I have two questions for the Minister. First, what assessment has he made of whether Suffolk and other rural counties have enough funding to maintain the roads their communities depend on? Secondly, where councils have discretion over how they spend their maintenance funding, how will the Minister use the existing incentives to make sure pothole repairs are a priority? When his Department judges the results, will it look at how long those repairs last? As we have heard throughout the debate, potholes are a nuisance that touch the lives of constituents across the country, in west Suffolk and elsewhere. Our roads keep the economy moving and enable all of us to go about our lives. The Government must heed the vital points that my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich has made today. I congratulate him once again on securing this important debate and I am sure, like me, he will hope to hear the vision from the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Justin Madders)Labour
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) on securing the debate. He spoke with real passion about the condition of the roads in his constituency and around Suffolk more generally—and rightly so, because this is not an abstract issue. All Members, whether they are present for this debate or not, know that the issue matters to people every day. Getting to work, taking children to school, reaching essential services, supporting local businesses—none of that can happen if we do not have roads. As we have heard, for too many people across Suffolk, those everyday journeys are harder when roads simply are not good enough or safe enough. The poor state of roads is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) mentioned, the product of over a decade of under-investment in our local road network. Potholes have been left unrepaired, surfaces have deteriorated and preventive maintenance has been deferred again and again. We are now dealing with the consequences of that, as we have heard, and we are determined to turn the situation around. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich complained about the short-term funding fixes of the past. It was fair to say that, and he was gracious enough to acknowledge that we are now on a different path. We are providing a record £7.3 billion of funding for local highways maintenance over the next four years. We are giving not only record funding, but the long-term certainty that councils need to plan properly to resurface roads and tackle the pothole plague, which will hopefully become a thing of the past. It is worth saying that Suffolk county council will receive more than £219 million over those four years, including over £45 million this year alone. That is a significant increase on the £31 million that it received in 2024-25, and a further increase on the £43 million it received last year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich said, the funding received from central Government was as low as £17.5 million in 2020. By 2029-30, that figure will rise to £64 million—almost a quadrupling. All Members would rightly acknowledge that as our giving the necessary resources. My hon. Friend raised a number of other projects in his constituency and throughout the wider Suffolk area that he would like to see dealt with. It is important to bring all stakeholders together to present credible business cases to try to bid within what he rightly acknowledges is a competitive environment. Every constituency and local authority has lots of projects that they want to be funded. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), asked whether there has been an assessment of funding for rural councils. We have confirmed that we will review the formula ahead of the next highways maintenance funding cycle so that any potential changes can come into effect from 2030 onwards. We will engage with local highway authorities as we consider any changes to the formula, because if it is decided that one area and one type of road network is more deserving, another, by definition, has to lose out. We know that every area has its own challenges, whether geography, climate, traffic levels, or, indeed, as we have heard in the debate, the nature of the local network. That is why funding is currently allocated using established national datasets such as road lengths to provide a fair and, importantly, consistent basis for distribution across England. Of course, funding is only one part of this; delivery is also important. We have done our part, and it is now up to councils to turn that record investment into visible improvement. That is why we have introduced a strengthened system of transparency reporting, updated ratings and incentive funding. That has a number of elements to it, the first of which is transparency. Local highway authorities published updated transparency reports in September, setting out how they will spend their funding and maintain their networks. That will allow residents to see what their council plans to deliver and it will enable them and hon. Members to hold councils to account. Secondly, ratings measuring road condition, capital spending and adherence to best practice will provide the public with an accessible assessment of how well each authority maintains its roads. As we have heard, Suffolk county council received an overall red rating for 2025-26. In the light of that, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich asked what support would be provided to the local authority. I can confirm that all red-rated authorities have received support, including peer reviews by sector experts and practical advice tailored to their needs. Of course, we will publish updated ratings in early 2027, drawing on this year’s strengthened transparency reports. We are working with local highway authorities and sector bodies to refine the approach, and we have given councils the opportunity to check their submitted figures before ratings are finalised. We therefore hopefully will not have a repeat of the debate we had with Suffolk county council, whereby one set of figures was submitted to the Department and another was relied on by the council at a later date. On incentives, to receive their full funding allocation, local highway authorities must meet certain requirements aimed at driving best practice and continual improvement in highways maintenance. This helps to ensure that our record investment is supported by sound planning, professional capability and a commitment to best practice. Building on that, last month saw the publication of the updated “Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure: A Code of Practice”, which underpins highway asset management across the sector, with input from local authorities and, importantly, industry partners. This approach is already bearing fruit. This year’s transparency reports show that nationally we are starting to turn a corner. Councils report that they are spending almost £5 billion on highways maintenance this year, more than £800 million more than two years ago. They plan to resurface nearly 7,000 miles of road—the distance from London to Singapore, should anyone wish to drive that far, although I would not recommend it—which is a 10% increase on last year. We also know that 94% of authorities are now planning preventive treatments, which is up from 76% previously, and the focus is increasingly on stopping potholes from forming in the first place and not simply on patching them up. It is so important that we are able to move to that preventive model, because improving maintenance is about not just smoothing rural journeys, but actually making them safer. The more preventive work that we can do, the safer the roads will be. In 2024, rural roads accounted for 60% of road fatalities, despite carrying only 45% of traffic. Road users are six times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on rural roads than on others. That is one of the reasons why our road safety strategy sets out targets to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads in Great Britain by 65%, and by 70% for children under 16, by 2035. Good maintenance is not merely a question of convenience; it contributes to a safer and more reliable network. I have already tried to deal with some of the points that hon. Members made, but I will now try to address any remaining ones. I must say that I am intrigued about what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) got up to with the Opposition spokesperson and this cheese business. No doubt when we re-engage with the Highways (Financing) Bill next week, she can tell the Public Bill Committee all about that particular— [ Interruption. ] Perhaps Hansard will just have to be left guessing as to what exactly went on there. My hon. Friend made important points about the A143 and its issues over the summer. Decarbonisation is in the metrics, but this about not just decarbonisation, but taking action to ensure that roads are more resilient to climate change by using road surface materials that can withstand extreme heat. The new transport resilience strategy that was published on 2 November strengthens how the transport sector anticipates, prepares and responds to disruptions. Of course, it is fair to say that asset owners—in this case, Suffolk county council—are indeed responsible for ensuring that such matters are dealt with. My hon. Friend cited an interesting phrase when he said that this is a war and the potholes are winning. I am sorry to hear that that is the case. However, with the record funding that we have delivered, the transparency that we are requiring and the support that we are offering, all local authorities should be winning that war. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich asked about skills in the road maintenance sector, which is obviously a very important issue. We want to ensure that we have continuity and succession planning in this vital sector, so the incentive framework is about improving the adoption of best practice. There is a training requirement on local authorities, and how organisations offer training is reflected in an increased interest in training since we introduced that requirement. Actually, 10% more preventive maintenance has resulted from increased training. As I have said, we will give support to those authorities that are red-rated. The hon. Member asked whether we hold data on how long it takes to fill potholes. He is correct that we do not hold that data, but we do collect data in the transparency reports about whether residents can tell their council about potholes and whether the council then responds about the action it has taken. From a public-facing perspective, that is an important metric. He also asked whether councils could have more access to technology, particularly councils in rural settings; I suggest to him that, because we have set a long-term funding strategy in place and given certainty to local authorities, they will have greater capacity and ability to plan ahead and invest in some of that new technology. He may also want to refer his local authority to the Live Labs 2 innovation programme, which includes several trials of innovative practices in rural areas. I think I have probably covered hon. Members’ main points. The record funding is all good, but it is incumbent on local authorities—particularly, in this case, Suffolk county council—to use that funding effectively to improve their performance and deliver what I think we in this House all expect: safer, smoother and more reliable journeys. I close by thanking the hon. Member for securing this debate.
It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank the Minister for a very spirited effort. I appreciate that I had not sent him my speech in advance, so many of the issues I brought up were new to him. I appreciate his point about machinery and Live Labs 2. I will probably write to the Department, reiterating some of the points I have raised, and continue the process. I am not here just to continue to frustrate his inbox, but I feel there is more that can be done beyond simply talking about funding. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) raised a very interesting point that often turns up: failed remediation work. I am sure he, like me and like most MPs, has an inbox full of messages from residents who are frustrated when, if a pothole emerges and is resurfaced, it then re-emerges. When I asked Suffolk county council about the failure rates, it insisted that the rate was 1%. Whether that is true is rightly for debate, but I would also say that 1%, when we are dealing with 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 potholes, is still a lot of potholes. It could be the case that that 1% figure is true—although it might not be—but it is a point well made. I also thank Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), for an interesting insight into life in Norfolk, and I appreciate his point about street works. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) made a speech that reminded us all what life is like driving along roads covered in potholes—it is predictably miserable and it never seems to end. I also thank the Opposition spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), for some very worthy points. I know she takes this issue seriously and that, whatever mistakes were made in the past with prioritising roads, the Conservative party’s work will prioritise road maintenance and transport infrastructure. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered potholes and road maintenance in Suffolk.
Sitting adjourned.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5432191.