'Whopping and shocking' 976% increase in urgent road repairs across Sunderland

Liberal Democrat councillors in Sunderland have uncovered figures which show that there has been a whopping 976% increase in urgent road repairs in the city.

A Liberal Democrat councillor in Sunderland is calling on the city council to divert more funding to the road repair budget, after he uncovered figures which show a 976% increase in emergency road repair cases compared to 2017, with the council unable to say when it will clear a backlog of 300 urgent road repairs as a result.

Pallion and Ford Estate Lib Dem councillor Martin Haswell said residents were 'sick to the back teeth' of waiting indefinitely for potholes to be repaired and roads to be resurfaced.

Figures Martin Haswell uncovered from Sunderland Council revealed that compared to the 2017 figures the Council is currently facing:

• a 25% increase in the volume of '24 hour Emergency Orders' (where there is an imminent risk to public safety that are repaired in between 2 hours and 24 hours)
• a 976% increase in the volume of '5 Day Urgent Orders' (emergency works that are large scale and require the organisation of additional resources, traffic management plans, Highway Authority permissions, etc.)
• a current backlog of over 300 20-day orders (works that are not a risk to public safety but are approaching an actionable level) to which "it is not possible to give a timescale in which the backlog will be addressed."

Commenting, Pallion and Ford Estate councillor and Deputy Leader of Sunderland Liberal Democrats Martin Haswell - who uncovered the statistics - said:

"For years opposition Lib Dem councillors on Sunderland City Council have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with local residents who are sick to the back teeth of crumbling roads in our communities.

"Instead of making sure they invested in basic services like fixing our roads, Sunderland Council has wasted money on vanity projects at the same time as cutting road repair budgets year after year.

"These shocking statistics show that the scale of the road repair backlog has now reached crisis point and will, I suspect, cost more to fix than if the Council had prioritised maintaining our roads in the first place. Instead those in charge of the council have let our roads get into such a state that there has been a whopping and shocking 976% increase in urgent road repairs."