Ely and East Cambridgeshire election candidates on potholes

Elizabeth McWilliams (Labour)

Elizabeth McWilliams is the Labour candidate for Ely and East Cambridgeshire. (Image: Elizabeth McWilliams.)

"After 14 years of Conservative rule there are more potholes in Britain than craters on the moon!

As well as damage to vehicles, bad roads cause serious injury and fatalities for cyclists and motor cyclists. If a business vehicle has to go for repairs, that’s loss of income.

Labour is pledging a blitz on potholes with an extra million repairs each year.

To prevent potholes forming in the first place, we’ll move to three-year funding settlements for councils so they can plan and spend more efficiently.

Labour will reform the planning system to take action on the blockers of aspiration so we get any new roads required built sooner and at a lower cost to the public purse.

I back the Vision Zero partnership to deliver safer roads in Cambridgeshire: prevent road deaths and reduce severity of injuries from road traffic collisions, and I welcome Labour’s Strategic Framework for Road Safety.

Labour will speed up the rollout of electric vehicle charging points. And our Plan for Drivers sees a crack down on rip-off car insurance.

I’m pleased to see Labour’s plans for publicly-owned rail services and for 1,300 new bus routes; these will reduce congestion making travel better for everyone."

Andy Cogan (Green)

Andy Cogan is the Green candidate for Ely and East Cambridgeshire. (Image: Andy Cogan)

Potholded roads have shredded tyres on our family cars, broken springs and worn out shock absorbers. I have trashed an expensive e-bike, twisting the back wheel and breaking a hub gear on a deep pothole on the bike route from Wicken to Ely.

Others have had similar experiences on the country roads and tracks round here.

But it is symptomatic of a wider malaise with our system of government.

Successive Tory governments have run down local government services as a deliberate act of policy and transferred the services to the profit driven private sector which charges more and more each year for less and less in the way of services.

The state of our potholed roads, some schools, our underfunded mental health services and some of our older hospitals are a source of national embarrassment.

We have very expensive privatised child care and elder and end-of-life care.

It is all part of the privatisation policy started under Thatcher that has brought us to this pass.

We need to restore our local government run public services and our public realm, with less dictatorship from central government. We can change it!

Charlotte Cane (Lib Dem)

Charlotte Can is the Lib Dem candidate for Ely and East Cambridgeshire. (Image: Charlotte Cane)

"Potholes are visible evidence of the Conservatives’ crumbling Britain. They are caused by freezing and thawing cycles, heavy traffic, water damage, age and wear, and poor construction or maintenance.

Local peat-based roads are a visible sign of climate change—alternating periods of heavy rain and drought mean they expand and contract, stressing the tarmac surface and causing craters, dips and splits. 

It’s a nationwide problem. The RAC’s Pothole Index, used since 2006 to track the condition of Britain’s roads, now stands at 1.70, up from 1.62 at the end of 2022. While this is nowhere near the all-time high of 3.5 recorded in 2010, it suggests drivers are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to experience pothole damage today as they were 15 years ago.

Central government should fund local authorities sufficiently to mend our roads, devolving more spending power to local councils to maintain existing roads and pavements. 

We also need more safe routes and crossings for cyclists, pedestrians and horse-riders, through and between our towns and villages.

This should include the notorious A10 BP roundabout crossing at Ely, which Conservative councillors made much more dangerous; and upgrading the junctions to ease the daily traffic jams on the A10."

Hoo-Ray Henry (Official Monster Raving Loony Party)

Hoo-Ray Henry represents the Official Monster Raving Loony party. (Image: Hoo-Ray Henry)

Others may claim to have an integrated roads policy, but only The Official Monster Raving Loony Party has an Integrated Potholes Policy.

It works in four simple phases:

1. The MOT is an annual test to ensure that your car is roadworthy. We will introduce the ROT, an annual test to make sure all roads are car-worthy;

2. Following the ROT, potholes deeper than 3” will be marked with a yellow plastic duck;

3. We will stop councils piling up tarmac on the roads in the form of speed humps and instead have it put in the potholes;

4. However, we’re concerned about just how much tarmac that may take. So, remembering the M4 Toll-road was built using pulped romance novels (yes, really!) we will mandate that the cans other politicos have kicked down the road or into the long grass will be collected, crushed and blended with illegal recreational drugs seized by the authorities – a perfect combination to fill pot holes!

Total genius!

All of which allows us to keep our key Manicfesto “promise” to fill up five million potholes, build five million new homes, employ 80,000 teachers, policemen and NHS staff and reduce taxes to five per cent…yeah right."

Ryan Coogan (Reform UK)

Ryan Coogan is the Ely and East Cambridgeshire Reform UK candidate. (Image: Ryan Coogan)

"I have travelled extensively on our road network between Cambridgeshire and the rest of Europe; often the roads I leave behind in Cambridgeshire are the worst roads I encounter on the entire journey.

Cambridgeshire roads around Ely, are some of the worst in the country. I cannot work out why we cant have what the rest of the country have?

I wish to study similar roads built on similar geology in the Netherlands, form a twining team with the highways department and learn; as I have never experienced the same issues there, and yet they suffer somewhat worse weather, have similar geology and yet produce better results with less money.

I wish to learn from what they do in both roads and also cycleways.  I wish to reform the cycleways - removing them from the side of roads, and creating a network of main cycleways fit for cyclists in a modern society, promoting the real safe green transport without the fear or distraction or danger of the motorist and vice versa.

We need to employ the latest modern equipment and processes, but really get to the bottom of the bitumen asphalt recycled plastic surface mix to ensure the surfaces and services procured as well as the road foundations last longer.

We have a huge opportunity here, by reforming and investing efficiently we can reform the local roads and create better, safe cycle ways for the future."

Lucy Frazer (Conservative)

Lucy Frazer is the Conservative candidate for Ely and East Cambridgeshire. (Image: Lucy Frazer)

"We understand that there are too many potholes. That's why the Government has already taken action to ensure that local councils have the funds they need to repair them. 

We have already  announced an £8 billion cash injection over 10 years to restore our roads, including substantial investment for our region. Cambridgeshire County Council has already been given significant funds to deliver additional resurfacing and drainage works across our area. 

"However, I have been very concerned that this money is not being used quickly enough or well enough. 

"I have heard many complaints about potholes that have not been filled, or potholes that have been filled, but shortly afterwards need doing again. 

"As a result of my concerns, and those raised by others, I recently had a meeting with the county council to ask for information about how they are allocating funds, how they are holding their contractors to account, and what their plan is to repair our roads.

"I made clear that we are seeing too many examples of botched repairs which are both exacerbating the problem and wasting taxpayer money.

"If re-elected, I will continue this work to fix our roads."

The candidates for Ely and East Cambs are:

Lucy Frazer (Conservative) 

Elizabeth McWilliams (Labour) 

Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat) 

Ryan Coogan (Reform)

Andy Cogan (Green)

Robert Bayley (Social Democrat Party)

Hoo Ray Henry (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party)

Obi Monye (Independent)

Rob Rawlins (Independent