Written evidence submitted by Suzy Richards (LRF0019)

These are photos of the road i live on in Staffordshire. This is pretty much indicative of the terrible state of repair most roads are in. The current inspection and repair system under taken by local councils is clearly completely inadequate. If it worked my road wouldn’t look like this!

The neat repair was carried out on the same day as a bit of tarmac was lobbed into the junction. The neat job was to repair a whole which was several inches deep. It had a cone to mark it out as dangerous for WEEKS. Then the cone disappeared. A few more weeks passed then it was finally repaired. This is a category one pothole. The most urgent and serious that are supposed to be repaired immediately.

The huge potholes and ruts you can see clearly in the same piece of road were completely ignored. The corner of the carriageway has deteriorated to such a degree most traffic swerves around it. The road is narrow so several times a day cars are missing each other by inches. There will be a head on collision at som
e point. There are constant minor repairs around all the utility trenches that also festoon the roads. A lot of the time they are ignored. It’s generally 6 to 12 months between a pothole appearing and any work being carried out. It was around 2 months to repair the category 1 defect with the cone.

The M6 is also in a disgusting state of repair and this is a motorway. I cannot understand why those responsible for repair are not routinely prosecuted for the disgusting state of the roads. It’s dereliction of duty. Road users are constantly suffering injury and damage. This week yet another cyclist was injured on a Staffordshire Road. Cyclists have died in other counties due to hitting potholes and yet the roads remain in an appalling state of repair while private contractors cream off money from councils and do a bad job.

This road was resurfaced a few years ago by a private contractor. It was a shoddy job and failed within weeks. They have not been forced to resurface the road again properly.

These photos are all taken within 200 yards of my house. Such is the state of the roads. Every single journey involves dodging around potholes and road defects. There are so many I cannot remember them all. To compound the issue Staffordshire won’t take defect reports from Fix My Street. They also refuse to take reports on stretches of road and insist each defect is reported individually! I could make 50 reports within a mile of my house quite easily. I can make hundreds of reports within 5 miles on the surrounding roads. I am fed up of reporting serious road defects and them being left for months and months. Many of them are dangerous. Councils have completely forgotten that cyclists and motorcyclists will be felled by a pothole that is far smaller than that which will damage a car.

I also have the misfortune to travel into the Cheshire East area further north. Again the roads are in a disgusting state. Major A roads are riddled with potholes. Subsidence is ignored until the carriageway collapses and closes the road rather than tackled before this happens.

September 2018

As a road user I’m fed up of paying through the nose for fuel taxes, VED and council tax and getting such a poor service. T

he roads aren’t fit for purpose. The repairs and inspection aren’t fit for purpose. Highways departments aren’t fit for purpose. They’re actively ignoring defects with ‘risk management’ which is basically short hand for do nothing until it’s a category 1 defect.

There should be national standards of pothole reporting and classification and each council should receive repair notices from independent inspectors. Ones that don’t do repairs within the specified time should have them carried out by a national independent body to a high standard and the council get billed. This way they have to get the work done. This way roads aren’t allowed to deteriorate to such a degree before action is taken.