As they canvass for the forthcoming election, the political parties are failing to address a major issue for voters: the poor state of the road network.
Decades of under investment has resulted in a deteriorating local road network riddled with potholes. The bill to restore the road network to a decent standard is £12 billion because successive governments have failed to provide the funding to carry out the necessary levels of road maintenance. Continued cutbacks in local authority funding means that the situation can only get worse.
“The political party that commits to real investment in our local road network would gather significant approval from voters,” said Howard Robinson, Chief Executive of the Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA).
RSTA is calling for the investment of an additional 2p per litre of the existing fuel duty to fix the plague pf potholes. This would provide an extra £1 billion to fix roads. RSTA has set-up a parliamentary petition forwarding the need for more funding which may be found at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/183637 – the petition has been cancelled by the DfT because of the election
“A further £1 billion annual investment would certainly help local authorities tackle the damage done by under-investment by successive governments,” argued Robinson, RSTA. “The poor state of our roads is a major social and economic issue. Voters should make it a political issue too asking the party activists and parliamentary candidates what their political party plans to do to increase investment in road maintenance.”