John Lamont
Main Page: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)Department Debates - View all John Lamont's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Stuart Anderson
The hon. Member raises a very good point. I will come on to the preventive measures and what can actually be returned to the economy to help the Department fix this major issue.
Potholes are one of the biggest issues raised with me since I have been an MP, and I am sure the same will be true for many other Members. Obviously when we get bad weather, we see them increase more and more, and that causes a major issue.
There are multiple areas that I would like to cover today. I am not raising one or two anecdotal concerns or bits of evidence; I am raising the more than 2,100 road defects reported to Shropshire council in January alone—that is, in one month. That is almost triple the number of reports in the previous month and double the number in January 2025. I have been told that potholes are not getting fixed quickly enough, which is causing roads to deteriorate and some to become impassable.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
I want to highlight the fact that in Scotland we have a particular challenge. Scottish Borders council is responsible for maintaining 1,900 miles of road, which must be one of the biggest distances in the whole of the UK, but in Scotland, because of the decisions that the SNP Government are making, rural local authorities such as Scottish Borders council are being neglected for the sake of the central belt. Does my hon. Friend agree that local authorities need to be funded properly to allow them to fix these many miles of roads?
Stuart Anderson
I do. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. There is more money being spent by councils than it costs to fix the roads. I will come on to that in detail in a minute. These are serious issues. I have one constituent that people have stopped visiting because their road is now impassable—talk about remoteness and being cut off in rural areas!