Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of (a) British Board of Agrément and (b) HAPAS-approved (i) self-adhesive surfacing membranes and (ii) other patch repair products on the long-term cost and failure rate of pothole repairs carried out by local highway authorities; and whether she plans to issue any guidance to local authorities and their contractors on (A) trialling and (B) adopting such measures.

The Government welcomes innovations that can help local highway authorities maintain their roads more effectively and efficiently. The Department encourages and supports innovation in road surface repairs in various ways.

For example, it has started the task of updating the Code of Practice for Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure, which will include new advice on matters such as surface treatments.

The Department is also providing £30 million to the ADEPT ‘Live Labs’ research programme, enabling local authority-led consortia to trial innovative low-carbon ways of looking after their networks. One of the projects within the Live Labs programme is enabling novel resurfacing materials to be tested and evaluated through the Centre of Excellence for Decarbonising Roads, led by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).