Westminster Hall Debate, Funding for Highways Essex, Wednesday 16 October

The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We are a politically led, cross party membership organisation, representing councils from England and Wales. 

Our role is to support, promote and improve local government, and raise national awareness of the work of councils. Our ultimate ambition is to support councils to deliver local solutions to national problems.

• 183,000 miles of local roads are vital economic and social infrastructure. Nearly every journey or delivery begins or ends on a local road maintained by a local authority.
• Local roads are a priority for councils because of their function but also because for many voters it is the local council service they experience every day.
• All roads face wear and tear requiring ongoing maintenance. But funding has not kept up, and our local road network is now an asset in decline due to this deficit.
• £2.1 billion capital funding for local roads in 2023-24 is not enough
• DfT provided £1.1 billion of funding for local roads in 2023-24, while councils added another £1 billion from local sources and other government funds, highlighting the importance of roads to councils at a time of extremely tight budgets.
• The proportion of local A roads that received maintenance treatment fell from 7.6 per cent in 2017 to 5.2 per cent in 2023, and for minor roads from 4.3 per cent to 2.4 per cent.
• A £16.3 billion backlog of repairs has developed and will continue to grow with more funding over a longer term and greater powers and flexibility for councils to maintain and improve their asset.
• Councils must abide by rules that lead to perverse outcomes when the funding is inadequate: Potholes must be filled, so filling potholes is prioritised over better value renewals and surface treatments to avoid even more potholes, leading to more potholes and worse roads than if councils had a flexibility to maintain the road network as well as possible under the funding available.
• Councils lack full and effective powers over roadworks undertakers to ensure the works are swift and the highway is returned to the council. The current regime of fines has become a minor cost of business for undertakers.
• The Government’s commitment to repair an additional million potholes a year is a good start, but we believe much more can be achieved through a co-designed long-term maintenance programme, building on innovation, and a new approach to highways maintenance funding, backed by year-on-year long-term funding certainty – similar to how National Highways receives funding. A new approach will give us a chance to reduce the current £16.3 billion backlog of road repairs efficiently and effectively.

Elliot Gregory, Public Affairs and Campaigns Advisor 

Email: [email protected]