£2.9 million given to address Dorset's 'poor road safety record'
Dorset MP welcomes funding but believes roads are in 'reasonably good condition'
A Dorset MP is "very pleased" Dorset Council has been given £2.9 million to fix potholes on roads.
For the last 18 months, MP Chris Loder has been lobbying the government for Dorset to receive a fair share of highway maintenance funding, he now believes his persistence has paid off.
He said the condition of the roads in Dorset, particularly west of the county, are in "reasonably good condition" but he strives to ensure that “our roads are the best they can be.”
Although he did acknowledge that “Dorset doesn’t have a good road safety record” and highlighted the A35 as a road “we see a lot of very serious accidents on.”
He urges Dorset Council, the beneficiaries of the government’s £200 million ‘pothole budget’, to repair the A30 and the, previously mentioned, A35.
MP Chris Loder said:
"We have pockets of areas where roads are not good for example, we've got some issues on the A3066, so much so that we had a big accident there less than a month ago.
“But they're generally isolated and they're generally where there's been some really bad weather.”
On the other hand, the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (Alarm) survey found that shortfalls in pothole repair budgets among local authorities have reached a record high, resulting in local roads continuing to deteriorate.
Mr Loder refuted these claims and instead questioned the materials being provided by tarmac providers:
“If the quality of their tarmac was better, we wouldn't need to spend so much money. Why aren't they making better quality tarmac, so it doesn't break in really cold weather?”
“Frankly, it seems they're just wanting more and more taxpayer’s money on what is, already, a considerable amount of money.”
A spokesperson from Cycling UK also doesn’t believe the £200 million comes close to what needs to be done to make our roads safe.
Keir Gallagher claims that there’s an estimated backlog of £12 billion to get our roads into a fit state of repair.
He doesn’t share the same optimism as Mr Loader about the government’s latest announcement to fix potholes.
Mr Gallagher has been telling us:
“The sad reality is that this government cut the pothole repair budget by £400 million in 2021, so an extra £200 million is unfortunately not going to solve the problem.
“What we need to see is a long-term funding commitment from government, so local authorities can plan ahead and can resurface roads not just fix potholes when they appear.”
MP Chris Loder stood by his government saying the additional funding “is good for the public and good for drivers.”