HANSARD
Road Maintenance Funding: Nottinghamshire
- 11:00 am
- I beg to move,That this House has considered funding for road maintenance in Nottinghamshire.It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. The issue of the condition of roads across my constituency is raised with me more than almost any other. Since becoming an MP, I have been contacted by hundreds of residents about potholes, crumbling surfaces and roads that have been left to deteriorate for far too long. Time and again the message from my constituents is the same: our roads are simply not good enough.In Mansfield, potholes are no longer just a nuisance; they are becoming local landmarks. Some residents tell me that they no longer bother trying to avoid them. They simply recognise them, almost like old friends on the school run or the commute. That may raise a smile, but behind that humour is a much more serious reality, because potholes are not just harmless inconveniences—they are hazards that damage vehicles. They also increase costs for families, sometimes by hundreds and even thousands of pounds. In some cases, they put human safety at risk—and not just of injury but sometimes death, and there are examples of that in my constituency.I have also heard from constituents about significant damage to tyres, which leaves people stranded late at night. In an email typical of the many that I have received, one resident described being left alone in Mansfield in the early hours after a punctured tyre, waiting until 5 am for recovery and assistance, and feeling vulnerable and unsafe. Another constituent wrote to me about her local estate, where a single pothole on her street is almost impossible to avoid. It has caused serious vehicle damage. She explained that she no longer reports issues to Nottinghamshire county council, the highway authority, because she has no confidence that it will lead to meaningful change. Instead, she sees the same pattern repeated: small temporary patches of tarmac that break down again after a very short period, or potholes simply marked with spray paint and left for weeks.The sense of resignation is perhaps the most frustrating part of all, and is something that I have heard many times. Roads are patched rather than properly repaired, problems are identified but not resolved, and residents feel that they are paying more and more in council tax only to receive less in return. Let us be clear that this is not just about inconvenience. Roads are essential infrastructure that people rely on to take their children to school, access healthcare and get to work. When they are in such a condition, there is a direct impact on daily life and our local economy. It is not acceptable that residents should be left facing repair bills, avoidable damage and safety risks because our roads have not been maintained properly.How did we get into this situation? The basic issue is quite simple: roads do not last indefinitely without planned maintenance. They require resurfacing at regular intervals, yet that cycle has been allowed to slip far beyond what is sustainable. The Asphalt Industry Alliance reports that roads in England are now resurfaced on average every 39 years for principal roads, 60 years for B and C roads, and sometimes over 100 years for unclassified roads—far beyond the recommended 10 to 20 years. The gap is not just a technical detail; it is a structural failure. It means roads are being allowed to deteriorate until they break down completely, leading to expensive and reactive repairs. Once that happens, the cost spiral is immediate. Patching potholes becomes more expensive than prevention, and each intervention lasts less time. We are, therefore, spending more for worse outcomes.Across the country, including in Nottinghamshire, that has created a repeating cycle of deterioration followed by temporary patching, further breakdown and repeat intervention: a managed decline that never resolves the underlying issues. Nationally, that has built up a substantial backlog, with independent estimates placing the cost of restoring local roads to proper condition at many billions of pounds, and large parts of the network close to the end of their structural life. In plain terms, we are dealing with not just potholes but the accumulated consequence of years of deferred maintenance and under-investment—not the result of a single bad winter or short-term disruption.Under the Conservative Government from 2010, central Government funding for local authorities was significantly reduced, particularly during the Cameron and Osborne years of 2010 to 2015. We all saw the impact of that on our local councils across various services. Capital expenditure on local road maintenance in Nottinghamshire fell from £16.6 million in 2011 to just £12 million by the time Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019.Revenue expenditure on local highway maintenance, funded through council tax receipts and business rates, remained below 2010 levels in every subsequent year, and in some years reduced by more than 50%. In the final five years of Conservative Government, some additional and welcome funding was provided but, after taking inflation into account, the real-terms cumulative loss in funding in Nottinghamshire alone over those 14 years amounted to tens of millions. Furthermore, because highways maintenance is not ringfenced, rising pressures from other areas forced local authorities to divert their limited resources to meet their obligations elsewhere, further weakening any capacity for preventive maintenance.A double pressure emerged: increasing demand on council budgets and a road network requiring more investment just as preventive maintenance was squeezed. The result, after years of Conservative under-investment, is a road network in Nottinghamshire that is increasingly worn out, more expensive to repair and reliant on temporary fixes instead of lasting solutions.That responsibility does not stop at the national level. My residents and others across Nottinghamshire will remember when our county council was led by the Conservatives under my predecessor, Ben Bradley, who was simultaneously leader of Nottinghamshire county council and Conservative MP for Mansfield. As council leader, he failed to reverse the deterioration of local roads or secure the additional funding needed, despite being in a prime position to do so.It is against that backdrop that the Labour Government have had to decide what happens next: whether we continue to manage decline or we finally move to a system where repair and maintenance of roads are done properly. Therefore, I am pleased that the Government have chosen the path of investment in our roads in Nottinghamshire, instead of the path of further deterioration and decline.I welcome the fact that the Labour Government recently set out a record £7.3 billion national multi-year settlement for local road maintenance across the country over the next four years. That is not just a headline figure; it is long-term and guaranteed funding that gives councils such as mine in Nottinghamshire the ability to plan properly, move away from crisis management and invest in proper preventive maintenance. That is on top of the Government’s investment of £1.6 billion for this financial year, which is a £500 million increase compared with the last financial year. This is real year-on-year growth, rather than managed decline.Under the previous system, funding for 2024-25 in Nottinghamshire stood at just £18.6 million. I repeat that figure for emphasis—£18.6 million. However, under this Labour Government, who have worked with the East Midlands combined county authority and Mayor Claire Ward, that figure has risen to £44.7 million in 2025-26, including £15.2 million of additional mayoral investment. It will rise again to £46.9 million in 2026-27, including £17.4 million from the mayor. That is tens of millions of pounds of additional funding in Nottinghamshire to help fix our roads. The contrast with what came before could not be clearer: investment under Labour, and decline under the Conservatives.I therefore place on record my thanks to Mayor Claire Ward and the Minister for the leadership they have shown. Partnership between central Government and regional leadership is exactly how to fix long-standing problems properly, because for years our councils were asked to do more for less. As mentioned earlier, preventive maintenance was completely squeezed, long-term planning was undermined and, as a 2019 Transport Committee report made clear, the system was “fragmented”, “reactive” and failed to deliver the certainty needed to maintain roads properly. Recommendations that were made clearly at the time were not acted on by the previous Government.Labour investment means that Nottinghamshire county council has both the resources and the responsibility to deliver, and what matters now to my constituents in Mansfield and to people across Nottinghamshire is delivery. I accept that there is a major backlog of repairs and that not every road will be fixed overnight. However, with these record funding settlements, Nottinghamshire county council cannot claim that it is not able to get this done due to a lack of funds. The money is coming in, I am glad to say; the question now is whether it can be used effectively at local level.We are investing more than ever before, we are changing a system that has failed for too long, and we are giving councils the tools they need to succeed. However, I also make it clear that this funding must translate into visible improvements on the ground, because residents in Mansfield do not measure success in budget lines or policy papers. They measure it by whether they can drive to work without damaging their car, whether parents can safely take their children to school and whether their roads are finally fit for purpose. That is the standard that I believe the Labour Government are now setting, and I will continue to hold the council to account for making sure it is met.
- 11:15 am
- It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy.I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) for securing this important debate. He spoke with real passion about the state of roads in Nottinghamshire, and rightly so, because this is not an abstract issue. It is about the roads that people rely on every day to get to work, to take their children to school, to support local businesses and, above all, to travel safely. For too long for people across Nottinghamshire, those everyday journeys have been made harder by roads that simply have not been good enough or safe enough.My hon. Friend highlighted that this has not happened by accident. It is the product of years—indeed, over a decade—of under-investment in our local road network: potholes left unrepaired, surfaces deteriorating, preventive maintenance deferred again and again. We are now dealing with the consequences of those decisions. This Government are determined to turn that around. That is why we are providing a record £7.3 billion for highway maintenance over the next four years, giving councils the long-term certainty that they need to plan properly to resurface our roads and tackle the pothole plague once and for all.Crucially, we are also backing the east midlands by providing £2 billion in transport for city regions funding through to 2031-32. Delivered through the East Midlands combined county authority under the leadership of Mayor Claire Ward, this substantial investment, devolved to the region, will enable transformational investment in local transport infrastructure, including roads, and empower local leaders to make decisions that reflect real local priorities, because we know that better decisions are made closer to the communities they serve. However, funding alone is not enough. It must be matched by delivery. That is why we have introduced a strengthened system of accountability, built on transparency, clear performance ratings and incentives for local highway authorities.
- 11:21 am
- Sitting suspended.