The Mayor of Liverpool has accepted that the state of the city’s roads has to change in the next 12 months.
Mayor Joanne Anderson said the “problem” with Liverpool’s roads was “really visible” to see across the city after delays to resurfacing projects in previous years. She said that new capital funding would hopefully bring an end to people’s frustration with the city’s network.
The Mayor was addressing members of Liverpool Council ’s Mayoral and Performance select committee and told councillors she too encountered the broken road surface regularly but new funding was made available to tackle the problem. She said: “There has been delays around the programme to resurface roads… every area is a priority.
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“I’m daily finding new holes in the road and so that has been delayed for quite a while. It is the season to get it done and in the next 12 months things should be different.” Liverpool Council’s cabinet signed off on almost £25m last week to repair more than 100 roads across the city as part of its highways investment programme.
As part of the scheme, the city will be divided into three areas - North, South and Central - in a bid to tackle priority areas in need of refurbishment. The road network is the largest physical asset owned by Liverpool Council.
During the meeting, Warbreck member, Cllr Alan Gibbons, expressed his frustration at the conditions of the roads in his ward and across the city as a whole, fearing a lack of action could impact residents’ engagement with local democracy. He added that he had written to Cllr Dan Barrington, cabinet member for climate change and environment, after reporting a pothole he’d seen “patted down with a boot.”
Speaking after the meeting, he said: “This has been going on since I was elected, you have endless patches occurring. There are spots where tarmac is just dumped and trampled down, it’s just not good enough.
“In Warbreck, there’s areas where I get sent pictures of potholes and damage to cars on a daily basis, it’s causing a lot of consternation and accompanying it is a sense of cynicism that nothing is going to change. People just feel like they aren’t seeing action on the ground.
“People have got to see the results right across the city.” Mayor Anderson told members on Wednesday that “roads and the bins are what everyone sees.”
She added: “The problem with our roads is really visible at the moment but I hope we can make a big difference with that.”
