Information obtained by the Swindon Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, has shown that the Council's spending on potholes has increased by tenfold over the last five years, yet the Council’s response rate to the maintenance of potholes has dramatically reduced over the last three years.
Information obtained by the Swindon Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, has shown that the Council’s spending on potholes has increased by tenfold over the last five years, yet the Council’s response rate to the maintenance of potholes has dramatically reduced over the last three years.
This information was obtained by the Labour Group Leader through a question to the Cabinet Member for Highways Strategic Transport and Leisure, Councilor Keith Williams, at the last Full Council Meeting.
The Labour Group Leader said it was “hugely disappointing” that the Council’s response rate to addressing potholes and other road maintenance issues was falling and that the Council needed to do all it could to reverse this decline.
The Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, said:
“Maintaining Swindon’s roads is a core council service that the Swindon public expects to be delivered to a very high standard. Swindon Council needs to be up to that challenge.
It is hugely disappointing that the Council’s response to fixing potholes is reducing over the last few years. Having said that speaking to residents on the doorstep, I have heard time and again that it is taking too long to get potholes in their area fixed, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the Council is taking longer to fix potholes.
Also, it isn’t coincidental that the Council’s response rate to fixing potholes is declining while the Council is cutting its capital road maintenance budget, which deals with road resurfacing. So rather than just investing more money in fixing potholes, I think the Council should review its annual road resurfacing programme to try to reduce the number of potholes that are springing up.
The Swindon Labour Group takes the issue of road maintenance very seriously as I know local residents do and I would urge Swindon’s other political groups to do the same.”
Cllr Jim Grant
Swindon Labour Group Leader