Meeting of the Parliament 19 December 2024
I thank Pam Gosal for securing this afternoon’s debate on potholes, which is the final debate of the year. Thinking of Christmas, I am sure that the Christmas wish of many drivers across Scotland will be for all the potholes in the country to be repaired. As I cannot comment on the council roads in East Dunbartonshire, which Pam Gosal mentioned in her motion, I will focus on the trunk roads in my constituency.
During the pandemic, Amey took over the maintenance of the south-west trunk roads maintenance contract for the A8 and the A78. Amey has been a breath of fresh air. I say that not only because of the greater investment that has been put into the network over the past three years, but because of the engagement that I and my staff have had with Amey. As I highlighted at general question time earlier today, most of the almost 5 miles of trunk road between Parklea in Port Glasgow and the bullring roundabout in Greenock has been resurfaced—in both directions—over the past two years. There have also been resurfacing projects on the A78. That has been welcomed by my constituents.
However, when significant stretches of roads are resurfaced, whether in my area or anywhere else in the country, road works will be unavoidable, and that can sometimes cause frustration among drivers. That was certainly the case in my local area, as some people felt that there were too many road works at one time. However, that was not always the fault of Amey. It was a result of a mix of factors: the situation that it inherited and the work as part of the year-long Scottish Water flood investment project along the A8. As I led the campaign for that project, I was delighted to see investment going into the road infrastructure and the flooding prevention infrastructure in my constituency.
I will not suggest that there are no potholes in Inverclyde. On the contrary, there are. However, the reality is that I receive more complaints about the length of time that it takes to drive from Wemyss Bay to Port Glasgow than I do about potholes. That was not always the case. Inverclyde has two trunk roads—the A78 and the A8—which are the main arteries of my area.
On the local aspect, only a few months ago, I held a round-table meeting on the road and pavement infrastructure. Inverclyde Council, Amey, bus operators and folk from ScotRail and Network Rail were all in attendance. I held that meeting to discuss how disabled constituents were affected by the state of that infrastructure, an example of which Pam Gosal gave in her speech. Specific points had been raised with me, so I wanted to get folk around the table to have a dialogue with a view to making things better and improving the outcomes for all my constituents.
My challenge to Amey and other organisations that are in charge of maintaining the roads is to keep on top of the maintenance. My office staff and I regularly report some of the smaller defects to Amey. Inverclyde Council used to have an app that was a great tool for highlighting such issues. The council has stopped that app, but it is looking at providing something else. It has been proven that, if people report defects timeously to Amey, it will fix those very quickly. I warmly welcome that.
Pam Gosal’s motion addresses the aspect of local authority roads. I note her challenge to the Scottish Government. Obviously, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity will respond on behalf of the Scottish Government, but I gently say to Pam Gosal that, in the budget, the Scottish Government proposes to provide local authorities with an extra £1 billion. I urge Pam Gosal to support the budget and to lobby local authorities in the West Scotland region to spend more money on roads.
I am sure that we all agree that we would like more to be invested in roads and in many other policy areas, but this Parliament has limited financial powers and a limited budget, so it must make political choices. I am not sure whether Pam Gosal lobbied the previous United Kingdom Conservative Government for additional resources for this Parliament to spend on roads. However, if we did not need to wait for the block grant every year, our situation would be somewhat different.
I put on record my thanks to all the staff who work on the trunk roads and local authority roads daily. They will be out over the festive period, in all weather conditions, working to keep our roads safe. I wish them and everyone in the chamber today, and all my constituents, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
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