It’s been a difficult winter for our county’s roads.

Severe weather conditions have almost doubled the number of potholes on our roads and we’ve had to tap into cash reserves to make sure residents could travel safely during the cold snap.

Northumbrians have become all too familiar with substandard roads. The former leader of the council, Labour’s Grant Davey, famously told residents that ‘there was no problem with the county’s roads’. It would be a stretch to blame his administration for the weather, but their failure to see the problem thousands of us experience every single day shows just how out of touch they were. It has also created a major backlog that we’re still working hard to address.

In stark contrast, we’re delivering on our manifesto promise of spending £100 million on the county’s roads over our 4-year term.

As portfolio holder for environmental services I have been leading in the ‘war on potholes’. Councillors have been encouraged to report the worst potholes in their area for repair under the ‘local pothole fund’. We’ve spent £300,000 on this fund since coming to office which has allowed local members to deliver real results for their areas.

Over this winter we have coped with the worst of the weather by taking £420,000 from the council’s contingency fund and have successfully applied for £930,000 from the national government who have stepped in to help counties like Northumberland cope with some of the most challenging weather it has ever experienced. We have also taken a new approach to repairs, replacing the formerly used method of simply 'patching up the hole' with a more effective method of repairing the road around the pothole, which experts suggest should last up to 10 years.

We can’t keep letting residents down by failing to acknowledge a problem we all experience every day. It is a priority of this council to make sure that our county’s roads are safe and comfortable for the people that use them, and I will continue to ensure we deliver on this.