More bumps in pot-holed roads - another example of Tory mismanagement

With well over half a billion potholes in Britain’s roads, local LibDem Prospective Parliamentary candidate Helen Maguire says the government has demonstrated another example of their inability to properly manage the country – including its infrastructure.

Research undertaken by the LibDems using Freedom of Information data highlights the situation regarding potholes in the UK at the point a year ago when the Government culled £500m from local authority road maintenance budgets.

“Clearly that was going to have a severe impact on already stretched local authority road maintenance budgets so the Tories responded by declaring that they would spend £200m on potholes. But even those of us less gifted in mathematics than Prime Minister Sunak can work out that there remains a £300m black hole in the council road maintenance budgets.

“Something had to give, and that something is more potholes in Surrey and the inevitable increasing wait for repairs to be undertaken,” said Helen Maguire.

Currently, Surrey County Council has been wrestling with the 43,000* potholes that emerged in the 2021/22 financial year with the longest reported pothole taking around four months to be repaired.

“That was the situation a year ago. It’s clear from driving around Ashtead, Leatherhead, Epsom, and Ewell the situation is deteriorating further, and so the situation on our roads continues to worsen. The Liberal Democrats are therefore demanding that the Government reverses its cuts to councils’ road maintenance budgets in full, so they can get on with fixing our roads,.” said Helen.

Notes to Editors

*Information regarding the number of potholes in Surrey was gained by the Liberal Democrats from Freedom of Information requestions to all relevant local authorities. In all, figures were provided by 81 councils. The figures showed the number of potholes and the the scale of lengthy pothole repair times across the country.