Debate contribution: Road Maintenance: Potholes
Debate contribution by Ms Liz Kimmins on .
- MLA
- Ms Liz Kimmins
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 13 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Road Maintenance: Potholes
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5789821
Read the official Assembly record
Text
As I said, the strategy sets out very clearly, in three or four lines, what we are doing to try to get ahead of that. A key thing that I have done this year, even within the constrained budget, is front-load my budget for road maintenance, ensuring that we have an increased budget at the start of the year to enable us to prepare. What we saw, in particular last year and the year before, was that more extreme weather conditions, including higher rainfall and more storms, have a massive impact on our road network. I want to build resilience into the road network before we get to that point. We had a brilliant summer: I hope that Members saw a lot of repair and resurfacing activities on our roads over the drier months. We heard of a scheme in Mr Clarke's constituency of almost £1 million. I hope that that sets out clearly the effort that I have been making to ensure that we can make a tangible difference, get ahead and demonstrate that we are doing more preventative work instead of reactive work, because that is not cost-effective. It is something that we have had to deal with for many years under temporary service and all the things that we have dealt with as a result of the lack of funding that the Executive have received. I hope, and have confidence in the fact that preventative work, coupled with the other work that we are doing through our different approach to road maintenance, including the use of digital technology and enhancing our in-house workforce, for instance, will make a major difference. I hope that we start to see those figures come down as soon as possible.
288 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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