Potholes and Road Maintenance
Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Ruth Cadbury(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered potholes and road maintenance.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, in discussing this vital issue.
On the surface, potholes and road maintenance may not sound like the most appealing or urgent of concerns. However, roads are a reflection of a country’s infrastructure and ability to provide essential services. Good roads are the lifeblood of our country. They connect communities, families, livelihoods and industries. They allow ambulances to reach their destinations faster, citizens to spend less of their already busy lives in traffic, and the police to reach those in need more quickly.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the debate. Does she agree that potholes not only present a cost, an inconvenience and sometimes a delay to motorists, but are a severe risk to life and limb for people riding bikes? Some 390 cyclists have been killed or seriously injured in the last 10 years as a result of potholes and bad road surfaces.
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree, and I was going to come on to that point in my speech a bit further down the road.
Today, our roads are unarguably in a state of disrepair that worsens by the day. A brief survey of the facts reveals that the challenges that we face will increase if the Government continue to ignore concerns.