My Personally Speaking column in The Sentinel (15 January 2026) If you want to understand how people really feel about the state of our roads, you don’t need a technical report – you just need to listen. In emails, at advice surgeries and in conversations around Newcastle-under-Lyme, the same frustrations come up time and again: potholes left unaddressed, uneven surfaces, and repairs that don’t seem to last very long if they happen at all. That everyday experience now has an

Staffordshire will receive an additional £54.8 million in incentive funding  to tackle potholes and improve road conditions, as part of Labour’s record investment in fixing Britain’s broken roads. This is a major boost for our county, and it will make a real difference to the everyday journeys people make to work, to school, to local shops and to see family and friends. This extra funding is on top of the £147 million in baseline roads funding already allocated to Staffordshi

One of the most persistent and serious issues raised with me since I became the Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme has been the poor state of our local roads. From vehicle damage to pedestrian hazards, constituents have made it clear that deteriorating road surfaces are causing real problems across the borough. To better capture the scale and specific locations of concern, I launched the Great Potholes Survey earlier this year. I wanted to hear directly from reside