Meeting of the Parliament 09 May 2018
I thank Rachael Hamilton for bringing this debate to the Parliament, which she is absolutely right to do, as all members will have had complaints from our constituents about potholes. I have seen potholes in my constituency, sometimes in the trunk road network and sometimes in the local road network. There have been some very good speeches, with some notable exceptions—without naming any names.
I will start with the Government’s responsibilities and then move on to local authority roads. The Government’s responsibility—and of course mine—is to maintain the 3,500km of our trunk road network, which stretches from south to north of the country and east to west. Many of those roads have been mentioned in the debate.
Our investment has been about £8.2 billion since 2007 and the 2018-19 budget for maintenance of the network has increased by £65 million to £433 million. The increase was for a number of reasons. Members will remember the Audit Scotland report in 2016 on the condition of Scotland’s roads. Local roads were in a less acceptable condition but, at that point, 87 per cent of our trunk road network was in an acceptable condition. Since then, we have had extreme weather challenges. Almost every speaker has recognised that this winter has had a detrimental effect on our road surfaces. We have therefore had to invest more and we are putting our money where our mouth is with regard to the trunk road network. That is worth putting on the record.
With regard to resurfacing, despite our postbags and inboxes being full of complaints, from 2016 to 2017 there was a 10 per cent increase in the satisfaction of the users of our trunk road network. The 2018 figures may be different, because I am the first to accept that the weather challenges have had a deteriorating effect on our road surfaces and the trunk road network.
I hope that most members have a relationship of sorts, even if it is not a good one, with the operating companies that work on the trunk road network in their constituencies. If they do not, I will be more than happy to facilitate introductions, as a number of members have asked about particular potholes in the trunk road network. Liam Kerr spoke about the A90 and if there are category 1 defects that could cause harm in the way that he describes—which I do not doubt at all—the operating companies have a duty in their contracts to repair them as soon as possible. If he does not have a good relationship with the operating company, I am happy to introduce him. I will take away the information on the potholes that he has mentioned; I do not have an answer for him right now in the debate, but I will see whether they have been repaired.