Lee Anderson Gives Highways Update Following First Pothole Patrol.

The Reform UK Member of Parliament for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, took to social media to give local residents an update on the state of our roads.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

He writes:

On Saturday I did a walk around Sutton town centre with local residents, the Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council Mick Barton, and a number of County Councillors to observe and report potholes and poor road surfaces.

We covered some of the worst roads in Sutton including the New Cross junction, Outram Street, Station Road, High Pavement, Springbank Roundabout, and much more. We will be doing these patrols in every patch so look out for when we do one in your area.

Last week I also met with Nottinghamshire MPs and with Nottinghamshire County Council to discuss the state of our roads.

One major take away from the meeting was a lack of preventative road maintenance during the previous Tory administration.This has resulted in hundreds of road surfaces going unrepaired for some time, leaving a huge backlog. So, at a time when local Tory councillors are complaining about the state of our roads, they really need to look at their own actions over the previous 8 years whilst in charge of our highways.

Rather than maintaining our roads properly, the Tories were more interested in cycle lanes such as the one they installed on High Pavement during the previous administration. How many cyclists have you seen using this cycle lane? Because I'm still yet to see one. Nevertheless, Reform UK are restoring some pride back into our streets.

Nottinghamshire County Council have assured us that going forward we now have an entirely new plan to fix our roads. From next week a major resurfacing programme of our roads will commence and top of the list is the New Cross junction in Sutton in Ashfield.

This is just the start and many other roads that are to be resurfaced will soon be announced in the Capital Budget for the next financial year. I will publish the list in due course.

Mick Barton, the Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, has also agreed to my request to include MPs in the decision-making process for which roads get resurfaced so that we can create a cross-party, cross-organisational system where we can identify which roads need the most attention.

There will be 10 extra highway crews coming in, as well as 2 JCB Pothole Pros (Pothole Repair Machines) which will arrive in the next couple of months with a fully trained crew.

Under the previous Tory administration our roads were neglected, but even more so in the winter months.

So, for the first time in Nottinghamshire, Hot Box crews will operate throughout the winter months to ensure repairs are carried out to a much higher standard.

The state of our roads has become a major embarrassment for our area and I feel ashamed driving around. However, I now feel confident that after over 20 years of neglect we now have a plan in place that will finally fix our roads. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.