Liberal Democrats achieve faster, better road repairs

12.51.03pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 2nd Apr 2006

Lib Dem campaigner Ernest Baidoo-Mitchell in a recently-repaired road in Vassall ward

Since Labour lost power in Lambeth in May 2002 the Lib Dems have been successfully pushing to tackle Labour's under-investment in roads and pavements. Over the last four years we've got £16.7 million to be invested in responsive and planned maintenance. The budget for responsive maintenance (i.e. for potholes and cracked pavings) is now an incredible six times what it was under Labour, and the time it takes for such repairs to be dealt with has been halved.

In total 37km of borough roads (29.2km council-funded and 7.8km TfL-funded) and 15.4km of pavement have been resurfaced around Lambeth.

Not only are thousands more potholes being filled, but extra funding for road repairs means that rather than getting to 40 millimetres deep before being filled, potholes are now being filled when they are only 25mm deep. What's more, every road is now inspected every quarter by the council's four dedicated inspectors, leading to defects being picked up and dealt with sooner. Under Labour residents were lucky if their road was inspected once a year. In addition, the time taken to repair a pothole or footway trip from when it was reported has now fallen from 4 weeks to14 days.

The improvement in the condition of roads and pavements as a result of this extra investment means the number of insurance claims against the council resulting from road and pavement accidents has fallen from 617 in 2001 under Labour to 250 in 2004.