Debate contribution: Road Maintenance Strategy

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 15 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

15 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Road Maintenance Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5100292

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Between January and June of this year, some 1,800 surface defects were reported in my constituency: that is one constituency. That gives a sense of the scale of the problem. This summer, I spent a lot of time talking directly to residents about their concerns, a lot of which amounted to road safety issues. One thing that united people in Andersonstown, Dunmurry, Mount Eagles — right across the west — as is the case in Members' constituencies, as they have said, was the state of the roads, footpaths and pavements. There are about 100 houses in the Lake Glen estate in the Andersonstown area — I have already contacted the Minister about this — and I counted at least 72 large potholes. That is almost a pothole for every house. That is pretty shocking, because it is a small enough estate. That should not be normalised; it needs to be addressed urgently. The situation has been ongoing for years. I have written to the Minister, and I urge a speedy resolution to the issue for residents in Lake Glen. The crumbling infrastructure is the visual manifestation of a state in terminal decline. Every pothole on our roads that sits unfilled is a daily reminder of the impact of more than a decade of austerity and underinvestment from Westminster and the Stormont Executive over the years. It is working-class people who pay the price for expensive repairs through injuries and through lost income when they have to wait at the roadside after a tyre has burst on a car, bike or whatever else. Roads that are riddled with potholes and other defects not only damage cars but are a safety risk for pedestrians and everyone who wheels. That is not emphasised enough. Earlier this year, a constituent of mine was taking her young child to school and, because of haphazard and dangerous parking outside the school, was forced to walk on the road, where she tripped on a deep pothole and fell in the street. She was injured, though not seriously so, but, obviously, that is a risk that she took. Due to the lack of cycling infrastructure, cyclists are also forced on to unsafe roads. Potholes cause serious damage to bikes but also to cyclists for whom there is a risk of serious injury or death. I do not know whether the Member for South Down feels the same, but there have been many times when, travelling up to the Building, I and other cyclists have had to navigate, try to spot potholes on the road and then try to dodge them. The journey is hairy enough as it is, but you risk getting hit by a car if you take a wrong turn or move too quickly. It is very dangerous for everybody, but particularly for cyclists and others who wheel.

I pay tribute to the workers who are responsible for maintaining the roads in the face of increasing pressure and inadequate budgets. Two years ago, DFI Roads workers went on strike over pay, and I was proud to stand with them on picket lines. To this day, they remain undervalued. I have been told, Minister, that some teams in your Department are operating at a 50% vacancy rate, which is shocking. For people whose job is to repair roads and respond to other road traffic requests, that is a shocking statistic and probably why there is such a delay and backlog in roads being maintained and repaired. Those people should not be replaced with agency staff; they should have proper terms and conditions and proper contracts. All the problems are connected. Overstretched workers, a lack of cycling infrastructure, bad parking and poor street design force vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists on to unsafe roads. However, even if the road maintenance budget were increased tenfold, with resurfacing schemes rolled out for every single road, potholes and road surface defects would keep coming back, because our roads network simply was not built to handle this volume of traffic and the weight and size of modern cars. I do not blame drivers; I blame the marketing companies, especially those that tell people to buy big SUVs and other heavy vehicles, which leads to the further disintegration of the roads. The Minister needs to look at and address that. We discovered the solution around 200 years ago. We already know that the best and safest way to transport large numbers of people from one place to another is by public transport, especially rail. It is much safer and cleaner for the environment. We need to focus on public transport and active travel rather than on roads, and relook at our relationship with cars. It is absurd that we are having a discussion here at 9.00 pm and the last bus leaves the estate at, I think, 6.20 pm. I implored the previous Infrastructure Minister to look at that, and I urge this Minister to ensure that there are late-night buses not just for MLAs but for the other people who work in the Building, so that they can leave their car at home.

850 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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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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