The state of the North East's roads - revealed

One in every six roads in the North East will need repaired or even closed in the next five years.

Research shows more than £650million is needed for a one-time cost to them back into a reasonable condition.

It comes as a Stockton MP fights to keep improvements to the A19 on track, after the Government expressed doubts about it.

Labour’s Alex Cunningham is calling on Westminster to keep their promise to work on the A19 between Wynyard and Norton.

“*This is a road project to widen that road and improve the flow of traffic in and out of Teesside.

“It’s absolutely critical it goes ahead, but the troublesome thing about it is the noise from that road,

“Local people have been campaigning for years to get a new surface put on it as well.

“They’ve been promised for decades now it would be replaced, and that hasn’t happened.”*

The ALARM report, from the Asphalt Industry Alliance also reveals it’s an average of 22 years before potholes are filled in the North East, while the backlog of maintenance work needed on our carriageways would take 12 years to clear.

We asked drivers across the North East what they were most concerned about;

*“It’s all the potholes – they never get repaired, then they keep bodging them up. Just fix them properly the first time.”

“The A1 didn’t make much sense – there’s 30/40 miles of roadworks for about 5 miles of actual work, which is very frustrating.”*

A spokesperson for Northumberland County Council said:

"In** these times of austerity for local government keeping roads up to a suitablestandard is an increasing challenge.  

"As a council we have been investingheavily in the maintenance and improvement of our highway network - from majorprojects such as the Crag End landslip repairs and the creation of a £30mbypass for Morpeth, to a number of smaller but significant projects that provide essential network links, often between remote communities."This year we will be spending in the region of £20m on highway maintenance activity.  

"We were also successful in securing anadditional £1.3million towards additional pothole work and other improvements,and we have been making best use of this through employing new technology.

"In Northumberland our highway network covers over 3,000 miles, and significant investment is needed to ensure good quality roadsinto the future.

"Further funding would always be welcomed,particularly in these times of austerity and importantly for more significant improvement schemes, that represent better long term value for money, rather than just for patching and pothole repairs."