MP Daniel Francis claims Bexley Council has only spent £40,000 fixing potholes this year, but the council said it has spent £260,000
Bexley Council’s row with an MP over potholes has escalated right to the top of Government after Sir Kier Starmer threatened to take funding away from the authority during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs).
In response, the council has written to the Prime Minister asking him to check his facts, claiming MP Daniel Francis provided him with misinformation. Last Wednesday (October 22), Mr Francis, the Labour MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford, said he visited every road in his constituency and reported all the potholes he encountered to ensure Conservative-controlled Bexley Council was spending all of the £895,000 it had been given by the Department of Transport this year to repair road defects.
In the House of Commons, Mr Francis said: “However, the Conservative council cabinet member responsible for roads wrote to our local newspaper, News Shopper , asking that I stop reporting potholes because it was causing work for the council. Will the Prime Minister join me in urging my Conservative council to get on and spend that money to make roads, such as Mayplace Road East, safe to drive on?”
In response, the Prime Minister said: “So, this is a local Conservative council telling my honourable friend not to point out potholes in case it has to fill them. That is outrageous—just like the record of the last 14 years.
“We know how problematic, dangerous and costly potholes are to drivers. That is why we have delivered record investment to maintain our roads and fix potholes. That is £1.6billion. That money has been given to councils, but it comes with strings.
“My message to the council to reinforce that is clear: ‘Use the money, fix the roads and show how you are carrying out repairs, or lose the money’. It is councils that should get on with the job of fixing our roads. I will make sure the Roads Minister follows up with my honourable friend.”
Mr Francis later went on BBC Radio 5 Live and claimed Bexley Council had only spent £40,000 of the £895,000 in the first three months of this financial year. Speaking to Matt Chorley, the MP said: “We have reported over 100 potholes. The council believes some of them don’t meet the criteria [to be filled in]. I don’t agree with that.
“I have created a measuring tool which is 20cm wide and I have also been measuring the depth. Some of them that they say don’t meet the criteria, I disagree with and residents have been in touch with me to say they also disagree with.”
Mr Francis said that one pothole in particular, the Mayplace Road East one that he mentioned at PMQs, was over one metre wide had still hadn’t been filled in. Bexley Council confirmed the pothole didn’t meet its emergency repair criteria and the authority said the road was due for resurfacing in December.
Mr Francis also said the number of A roads in Bexley rated in the council’s red category that require urgent attention had increased by 680 per cent in four years, and the number of B and C roads in the red category had increased by 866 per cent. The MP blamed the council’s current administration for cutting its capital budget in half in 2021 for the rise.
Mr Francis’ claims and his question to the Prime Minister were discussed at a public cabinet meeting of Bexley Council the following day (October 23). Conservative councillors were angered by the PM’s threat to remove Department for Transport funding.
Cllr David Leaf—who will become Bexley’s new council leader next month—said he was “shocked and appalled” to hear what Mr Starmer had said in the House of Commons. Cllr Leaf said: “I think that’s outrageous and disgraceful, and it’s appalling that the Prime Minister didn’t check his facts.
“Perhaps he was too busy waiting for instructions from his Chinese Communist Party paymasters, or too distracted plotting the tax rises which are going to hit our residents and our businesses in next month’s budget, or perhaps he way too busy signing 35 billion pounds of our money to Mauritius, but whatever the reason, it’s unacceptable and we will very robustly defend our position and expect the Prime Minister to correct the record.”
Cllr Richard Diment, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and the man referred to by Mr Francis in the House of Commons, said the MP’s comments were “outrageous” as they put Bexley’s government funding at risk. He added: “As we learned when he was a member of this council, Mr Francis is cavalier with the facts and deliberately misled the House of Commons yesterday.”
Cllr Diment said the MP reported over 150 potholes in just over a week. The council inspected every single one and found that only around a quarter of these met the criteria for action, and only nine met the criteria for immediate action. Cllr Diment believed Mr Francis’ actions had wasted council resources and taxpayers’ money.
He went on to compare the state of Bexley’s roads to those of neighbouring authorities. He claimed that in Bexley, around 1 per cent of its A roads were in the red category, while in Lewisham it was 5 per cent, Havering it was 23 per cent and in Croydon it was 25 per cent.
When discussing B and C roads in the red, he said in Bexley it was 3 per cent while in Greenwich it was 30 per cent, Havering it was 26 per cent, Lewisham it was 8 per cent and in Croydon it was 18 per cent. Cllr Diment added: “Although it is unfortunate that we do have potholes, the reality is that our roads are in a far better condition than those of our neighbours.”
He also disputed the MP’s claims that Bexley had only spent £40,000 of the £895,000 annual fund, saying this figure referred to the amount of money that had been invoiced and paid for. He said the council had actually spent £260,000 and had “every intention” to use the entire fund.
Cllr Diment concluded: “He needs to make it clear that he misled the House of Commons yesterday and we will be making that perfectly clear to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Transport and we’ll be inviting the Secretary of State for Transport to come down here and see how we’re keeping Bexley’s roads in a better condition that most of our neighbours.”
Cllr Leaf sent a letter to the PM on the following day, disputing what he had been told by Mr Francis, asking for assurances that Bexley’s funding would not be cut, and requesting “in future you will check your facts before causing concern to our residents and businesses and criticising the work undertaken by hardworking council staff and our contractors”.
Bexley Council is yet to receive a response.
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