Debate contribution: Road Maintenance
Debate contribution by Mr John Stewart on .
- MLA
- Mr John Stewart
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 16 February 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Road Maintenance
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5391226
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Members who tabled the motion. It is obviously a critical issue that affects every one of our constituents. Across the country, our roads are in a diabolical state: that is not an exaggeration. Today, we are not debating minor wear and tear, seasonal deterioration or the usual spikes and complaints after bad weather. We are debating the cumulative failure of road asset management across Northern Ireland; a failure of strategy and of prioritisation of long-term planning that has left our road network in a visibly deteriorating state. Recent storm damage, of which there is much, did not create the problem: it merely exposed it. The motion states that over 127,000 surface defects were recorded in a single year, including 98,000 potholes. That is not simply a result of weather events: it is the product of a maintenance model that has been reactive, under-resourced and strategically unfocused for too long. Across Northern Ireland and specifically in my constituency of East Antrim, which I can talk to, the situation is stark. From rural routes connecting villages and farms to arterial routes carrying commuters into Carrickfergus and Larne, the condition of our surface roads is simply unacceptable. Residents are not raising cosmetic concerns: they are reporting damaged suspension, burst tyres, unsafe journeys and roads that seem to have been totally neglected. Aside from the destruction and damage and the risk to public safety, it is a huge burden on the public purse, with millions already spent on compensation every year. Those defects are not statistics on a departmental briefing note: they are wheel-busting, axle-damaging craters, hazards for cyclists navigating uneven roads, and trip hazards for pedestrians, particularly older residents with mobility issues.
The Minister continues to defend an approach that intervenes only at the highest-priority level, and, even then, only with the minimum standard of work required to remove the immediate liability. That is not stewardship of a multibillion-pound public asset; it is crisis management. We would not run our health service by treating only emergencies and abandoning preventative care. We would not maintain public buildings by waiting for structural failure before acting. That is what is happening with our roads.
Yes.
I thank the Member for his intervention. It will come as no shock to him that I absolutely agree. It is a case of being penny wise and pound foolish. The model that we are pursuing at the minute is to find a temporary solution to the problem and move on to the next one. Reactive patching is not a strategy but a short-term fix that accelerates long-term decline. Every temporary repair that fails within months increases the life-cycle costs. Every delayed resurfacing programme compounds the structural destruction of the network. The financial argument for planned preventative maintenance is overwhelming, yet it is not being translated into policy. We heard from the Member who proposed the motion about increased insurance costs and their impacts. Those are real experiences that are affecting people. We also heard about the draft road maintenance strategy. It has been talked about for some time, yet it contains a total lack of clarity and operational detail. For example, where are the five-year resurfacing targets broken down by road classification? Where are the measurable reductions in repeat defect rates? Where is the transparent assessment of the maintenance backlog and the trajectory for reducing it? Where are the quarterly accountability metrics that will allow the Assembly to scrutinise any progress? The reality is that they are all absent. Instead, we have broad language about resilience and sustainability with which none of us will necessarily disagree, but it comes without a costed action plan to deliver either. We have talked about funding pressures. No one disagrees that that is the case, but the reality is this: the Department for Infrastructure has a £1·55 billion budget a year, so there can be costings done and savings found within that. No one disputes that there are pressures, and they have been there for some time. Leadership, however, is demonstrated by structuring and prioritising limited resources and then defending their use. Allowing assets to deteriorate to the point of structural failure does not save money; it defers costs and ultimately multiplies them. Rural communities are particularly exposed. In my constituency of East Antrim, agricultural traffic routes, school transport routes and key economic corridors are suffering. Businesses cannot operate effectively on fractured infrastructure, and there is an impact on emergency response times. As I have said, there are hidden costs to the public. Motorists across Northern Ireland are being forced to claim compensation for vehicle damage that runs into thousands and millions of pounds each year. Insurance premiums are rising accordingly. For anyone who owns a car, we have some of the highest insurance rates anywhere on these islands. That is having a massive impact. We need a fully costed, multi-year road maintenance strategy; a transparent quantification of the maintenance backlog and annual reduction targets; a decisive shift from reactive patching to planned resurfacing with clear, published performance metrics; and a funding model for asset preservation, not short-term expediency. Those are key issues, and the Minister needs to act as quickly as possible.
862 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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