I recently used the M6 Toll road again. Free flowing, good services area, no potholes. What a contrast with some of the nationalised motorways. In the last one a half years a government that hates motorists has starved them of maintenance so we now have the potholes we are used to on lesser Council roads on our most used and biggest highways. Hitting a pothole at 70 mph can do more damage than on a slower road. Motorists have to keep lane disciple to avoid other vehicles so they usually cannot swerve to avoid.
All my life our roads have been inadequate. Always too little capacity and under some governments and Councils badly maintained. In recent years the highways authorities have done their best to reduce capacity for cars and to make it mire difficult to drive anywhere.
We beed to put in more capacity to cope with the huge increase of population and to accommodate all the long haul trucks for imports necessitated by the government’s huge industrial plant and factory closure programme.
The obvious way to do it is to allow new toll roads or toll lanes adding to existing roads. The driver paying the toll for less congestion and a better road wins, but so does every other road user as the public roads paid out of taxes also become less congested.
The large number of prolonged road closures reflects dreadful public sector management. Toll roads stay open as much as possible as their owners and builders beed the revenue to lay the bills.
March 8, 2026
Indeed just why are motorists so hugely overtaxed (vat, road tax, car tax, fuel tax, insurance tax, mugging taxes… ) and yet trains are not really taxes at all and about 50% subsidised. This make no sense on a level playing field the demand for road would be far higher and for trains far less, Even with this hugely rigged market talking 5 people by car can be less than 1/20 of the cost of going by train plus you go door to door without the end connections.
With pot holes a stitch in time pays off handsomely. A small pot hole rapidly becomes a large one as each tyre crunches in to it also they fill with water and the expansion freezing & thawing process too. Plus you avoid all the pointless vehicle damage. Not even that expensive to fix and far cheaper than not fixing them.
Reply Good to have some positive and informative contributions from you after so much repetitious abuse about the past.
March 8, 2026
With self driving cars and taxis on the way road will be even more important as taxis will become far cheaper and car available to children and people who cannot drive.
Government like to justify the huge train and bus subsidies and over taxation of road vehicles by claiming (quite wrongly) that they save CO2. But with average occupancy, staff, track maintenance, ticketing costs, end connections often two double drop of and pick up journeys they do not in general at all. Not that a bit more gas of life and tree food is a real problem anyway.
March 8, 2026
They do this by pretending trains and buses are fairly full. They may be for parts of the journey in rush hour but on average over the whole day depot to depot occupancy can be lower than 10% on many routes. Passengers impressions of occupancy are wrong as a full bus or train is seen by far more than a nearly empty one. A sampling error. Get the driver to record occupancy you get the real far lower figures. This sampling error enable government to con voters into thinking trains and buses are far more efficient than they actually are. BUS and train trips also often take rambling indirect routes, need end connections and start/stop every few hundred yards. Useless if you have tools, much luggage or material to carry too.
March 8, 2026
Massive problem where I live.. thanls to long time Conservative controlled West Sussex. Made no effort at all this Winter until Reform won the court cass mandating council elections. Now they are having a half hearted attempt to do something.
Monopoly institutions – councils – are extremely poor value for money, are not tested against any benchmark and repeatedly put up council tax by at least 4.9% every year. Going to get even worse with Labour’s unitary mandates.. smaller local accountabiliy is the answer.
March 8, 2026
Pretty soon all the Persians will be going home.
We need to repatriate millions of illegal migrants who create demand but no productivity. They abuse our people and our laws and they are all criminals as the Home Office now admits, calling them ‘illegal migrants’ rather than ‘asylum seekers’.
Our population is about to drop to around 55 million.
We don’t need more roads, private roads or any deviation from our previous modus operandi.
We need a new political class who understands that they serve the people of this country.
March 8, 2026
The Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) reports a £16.8 billion-£17 billion, one-off cost needed to fix the backlog of road repairs in England and Wales. What a bargain as it cost far more not to do this in damage to vehicles, pot holes getting larger and larger and even in deaths for some cyclists and motor cyclists.
UK road users pay over £35 billion annually in direct taxes, primarily through fuel duty (~£24.8–£28 billion) and Vehicle Excise Duty (VED/car tax, ~£7–£7.8 billion).
But recent government, politicians and LEAs far prefer blocking and constricting the roads with bus lanes, bike lanes, endless anti-car traffic lights, islands, low traffic neighbourhoods (which make people drive further) causing huge congestion, motorist mugging devices. What a great cash cow plan! Does wonders at making the country even less competitive and wasting people’s time.
March 8, 2026
Agree very much with you Sir John our roads are terrible, but the only true hole is one big enough to swallow the liebour party then fill it in never to be seen again for a very very long time
March 8, 2026
My Lord,
We should also spare a thought for motorcyclists in relation to potholes.
March 8, 2026
Indeed and cyclists who can so easily hit them or swerve round them, fall off and then get run over!