Debate contribution: Road Maintenance Strategy

Debate contribution by Mr Stephen Dunne on 15 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Stephen Dunne

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

15 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Road Maintenance Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5100246

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I thank the Minister for her attendance this evening; the debate is slightly later than expected. I welcome the opportunity to open the debate on delivering a new road maintenance strategy, which is a very important issue to us all around the Chamber and across Northern Ireland. Few issues unite our constituents more than their frustration at the poor and sometimes shocking state of the roads across our country. Our roads are broken. Everyone in Northern Ireland knows that. Day after day, people drive on our crumbling roads, walk on dangerous broken footpaths and try to see past restricted sight lines because of overgrown grass at busy junctions. There are blocked gullies and little or no weed control, and we can see damaged road signage and our footpaths blocked by overgrown vegetation. Road safety has been compromised significantly, and we have seen a decline in that important issue in the past number of years. Our road network is of significant economic and social importance, and it affects everybody's life daily in so many ways. We are more dependent on road-based transport for industry, commerce and social purposes than any other part of the United Kingdom. Over the past 10 years and counting, we have seen a limited service in road maintenance, and some would say that we have seen a very limited service. Now is the time to change that. The Minister has now been in position for some time, and there is an opportunity to really get to grips with our poor road maintenance. Almost all our freight is transported by road compared with 76% in GB. Our public transport system also relies heavily on our roads network. We are not as fortunate as other countries that have a more diverse public transport system, so our roads are a crucial part of our daily living in so many ways. The Minister presides over a Department that has seen its maintenance backlog triple in the past five years. Shockingly, the cost of that now sits at a staggering £3 billion. The longer the problem goes on, the bigger it will become. Action is needed now to start to ensure that the backlog is reduced not just through sticking plasters but through a sustainable vision for dealing with the root causes of the problem. I fear that road maintenance does not seem to be a priority for the Infrastructure Minister and does not seem to be the priority that it should be. Sinn Féin holds the Infrastructure and the Finance Ministries. It holds the purse and the portfolio, yet, after almost two years, there is still no strategy and no delivery or action on getting to grips with our roads. In March, the Minister told me that a new roads maintenance strategy would be presented to her in the coming weeks. It is now well through September. Weeks have become months, and I fear that they will become years before we see any further action. Dither has become delay, and people are still waiting. Sinn Féin cannot hide behind the Tories any more: they are gone. The previous Minister often repeated that line, but it is no longer the case. Sinn Féin holds the power over the roads. It runs the Department for Infrastructure, and it is in charge of the purse strings. I fear that this is its failure, but there is an opportunity to do better and to deliver more than excuses. In the previous financial year, just one year, 107,000 potholes were recorded. That is not maintenance but decay and decline. The number of injury and damage claims has more than doubled from 1,400 five years ago to over 3,800 last year. In that same five-year period, over £32 million of public money has been spent on payouts for vehicle damage and personal injury liability claims. Every pound spent on claims is a pound not spent on tar, stone and repair solutions. It is a false economy wherein we pay twice: once in taxes and again in repairs. In 2023-24 alone, 93,600 defects were patched, yet the roads are worse, not better. It proves that patchwork is not a plan. You can patch a hole, but you cannot patch a network. Over 2,500 potholes were reported in my constituency of North Down and in the Ards and North Down council area last year. Of those, 1,800 were acted on, but 1,000 were dismissed as having no action. That is 1,000 defects that my constituents have to attempt to drive, cycle and walk over. In the Ards and North Down area alone, 3,800 potholes were reported. That is the highest number in any council in years, yet that area often receives the lowest funding allocation. On a number of occasions, the Minister specifically referenced Ards and North Down as running a successful pilot. While our section office does its best, I assure the Minister that much more is needed. My constituents say clearly, "No more dither, no more delay: end the road decay". The A5 is a failed project under a Sinn Féin Ministry. It has been tied up in that party's support for the unrealistic targets of the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022, leaving landowners in a state of continued confusion. That confusion continues today, while the road remains a major safety concern. Compensation claims on our roads are soaring year after year, because repairs are not being completed, and it is important to note that millions of pounds are being wasted. There are also major challenges with staff, recruitment and resources, and the backlog of £3 billion has left section office trying to manage on limited resources and low staffing levels. Recently, as was mentioned earlier, the Mineral Products Association (MPA) warned of the dire consequences for our roads. The role of utilities is an important issue that needs to be raised as well. There is an opportunity to do better. Utilities sometimes come in a short time after roads have been resurfaced by the Department, following many years of campaigning, and dig up those recently resurfaced roads. That happened in my area in recent months. There is an opportunity for closer working with utility companies to avoid that. There is also a role for partnerships with councils. We have 11 councils, and we often have 11 different models of working, including in councils' relationships with the Department for Infrastructure. There is room for a more joined-up, strategic approach that would ultimately deliver more effective and efficient ways of managing our roads. For example, the relationship between the Department and councils could be improved where councils have responsibility for cleaning channels. I would also like the Minister to comment on the role of technology. We have seen how technology has changed our world across many Departments. To the onlooker, however, it does not appear that modern technology is used to the extent that it could be in dealing with and improving our road network. Active travel has an important role to play — we all know the value of walking and cycling, which have so many benefits — but it is simply not possible to enjoy active travel when many of our footpaths and roads are in a dangerous condition, with broken surfaces, overgrown verges and much more. My colleague Keith Buchanan consistently raises that issue in the Committee and the Chamber, and he will no doubt raise it again today. After two years, Sinn Féin is running out of excuses for not getting on top of our roads. It holds Infrastructure and Finance — the purse and the power — but, to date, has failed to deliver. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and hope that progress can be made on delivering the long-awaited road maintenance strategy. Our people cannot drive on promises; we need a clear plan and repairs that last. We also need fairness across Northern Ireland, west and east of the Bann, where people pay taxes and rightly expect a reasonable level of service.

Minister, the excuses are over. We ask you to stop the decay on our roads and to, now, deliver the strategy and action that is so greatly needed.

1,366 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:10 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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