Debate contribution: Roadworks: South Down

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew McMurray on 3 December 2024.

MLA

Mr Andrew McMurray

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

3 December 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Roadworks: South Down

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4691454

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I certainly associate myself with the comments of and the love for South Down that the two Members who have spoken have expressed. There is a well-worn cliché of politicians appearing in the local paper pointing at a pothole, but it is a cliché for a reason. The issue of potholes is raised regularly with us, and it is important to our constituents in South Down. I hear regularly about people having to drive in the middle of the road, people having their back pain exacerbated by going over potholes and, indeed, parents' difficulties in trying to keep their children with special needs comfortable on journeys. The list goes on. That is why I stand here this evening talking about potholes and the state of the roads. I thank the Member for South Down Ms Forsythe for raising the issue and, indeed, the Minister for being here. The Minister has been at the crease for quite a while now. He has had two innings, not out. Happy days. The state of the roads is appalling, no more so than in the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council area, which covers most of my constituency of South Down. With 20,005 potholes in 2023, Newry, Mourne and Down has the highest number of surface defects in Northern Ireland by a substantial margin. It also has the worst ratio of potholes to road length, with approximately 6·5 potholes for every kilometre of road in 2023. For the past five years, Newry, Mourne and Down was also the council area with the highest number of claims resulting in compensation. Potholes can cause a lot of damage. Vehicle damage claims from Newry, Mourne and Down have nearly tripled in the past five years. There were 704 claims in 2023-24. DFI paid out for nearly 600 of them at a cost of over £770,000. I think that Ms Forsythe referred to that. Most of that increase in claims was due to potholes. In most cases, a vehicle was damaged, but we must not forget that 120 claims in the past five years were made because someone in the Newry, Mourne and Down area was physically hurt due to a road defect. Potholes are more dangerous for vulnerable road users. That includes cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians, especially those with reduced mobility. That is easily forgotten when the focus is on damage to cars. I wrote to the Minister, asking for a breakdown of public liability claims for personal injury by road user type. The response confirmed that the majority of personal injury claims are from pedestrians but that the Department cannot disaggregate personal injury claims from pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. I encourage the Minister to collect that data in future so that the risk that is faced by different road users can be better understood. Vulnerable road users can be seriously hurt if they ride through or trip over a pothole or veer into traffic in order to avoid one. Those road users are also at increased risk from other drivers losing control of their vehicles. A few weeks ago, an interesting piece of research was mentioned at the Infrastructure Committee about the use of eyeball tracking to show that motorcyclists spend more time scanning for road defects than car drivers do, and that that time is not spent scanning for other hazards. I am a pedal cyclist. While we travel more slowly, other motor vehicles will often swerve to avoid hazards and therefore put cyclists at risk. People have a tendency to think about themselves rather than the cyclist at the side of the road. We already know that inattention is a major cause of road accidents, so any distractions that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable road users must make us pause. That is not adequately reflected in the way in which road safety statistics are currently presented. Again, as a cyclist, I find that deeply concerning. I am not alone in feeling that way. In a DFI survey on road safety, 40% of cyclists said that poor road conditions made them feel unsafe, ranking behind only heavy traffic and inconsiderate drivers. Unfortunately, our roads are getting worse. In recent years, the gap between defects instructed and defects repaired has widened dramatically. DFI's most recent report shows that, last year, almost 28,000 priority defects were recorded in Newry, Mourne and Down, but only around 18,000 were repaired within the specified time frame. That is a gap of almost 10,000 serious potholes that are just sitting there waiting to be repaired. As is so true about many other issues, that reflects significant long-term underinvestment in our roads network. To make matters worse, DFI's transport and road asset management branch has also been struggling with severe staff shortages. All that means that only an essential road maintenance service has been delivered for some time now, and only the highest-priority defects have been fixed in areas of high risk. As we have seen, even priority defects can often take longer to fix than they should. Today, as was referenced, the NI Audit Office published a report on road openings by utilities. The issue is that utilities must sometimes open roads or footpaths to maintain their infrastructure, but they are then obliged to repair the opening to an acceptable standard. Unfortunately, that does not always happen, and, in those cases, the road or footpath might deteriorate more quickly. Indeed, I witnessed that on Sunday morning on my run, when the tarmac around a manhole disintegrated in front of my very eyes. That issue happens all the time. If the Department does not spot a substandard repair within three years, it becomes responsible for fixing the damage. The report found that the Department has improved the way in which it manages those road openings but also that further improvements could be made. For example, it suggested that the inspection and testing programmes could be improved, the warranty extended and inspection charges increased. I hope that the Minister will consider those options carefully to ensure that the Department focuses its limited resources on the repairs that are truly its responsibility and does not pick up the tab for issues that are caused by utilities.

1,037 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification