An overwhelming majority of people agree that existing fuel duty should be reinvested back into local areas to help bring our crumbling roads up to scratch, a national poll revealed last week.

The Local Government Association, which represents more than 370 councils in England and Wales, is calling for the Government to inject a further £1 billion a year into roads maintenance by investing the equivalent of just 2 pence per litre of existing fuel duty. This should not be paid for by increasing fuel duty rates.

A national survey found 83 per cent of those polled back the plan which is included in the LGA’s blueprint for the first 100 days of the next government to tackle the key issues facing Britain today.

Regionally, this total rises to 90 per cent in Eastern England, 88 per cent in Wales and 85 per cent in Yorkshire and Humberside.

The poll, carried out by Populus Data Solutions for the LGA, also found one in five respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a party which committed extra money to fixing our roads in next year’s General Election.

It was a particular vote-winner for more than a quarter of men polled (27 per cent) and for 29 per cent of all people polled in Yorkshire and Humberside and 28 per cent in London.

The LGA said improving our roads would also help businesses suffering from congestion caused by frequent road repairs to better invest in jobs and growth and save motorists money from the cost of repairing damage caused by potholes.

Councillor Peter Box, LGA Transport Spokesman, said:

“We are all fed up with driving on crumbling roads that are not fit for the 21st century. Councils work hard to fix millions of potholes every year despite deep funding cuts and multi-million pound compensation costs. We want to do more but are trapped in a frustrating and endless cycle of only being able to patch up our deteriorating roads.

“This survey shows that the vast majority of people agree that a small amount of the billions they pay the Treasury each year at the pumps in fuel duty should be reinvested in local areas to bring our decaying roads up to scratch.

“This would not only allow councils to improve the quality of our roads over the next decade but our poll reveals it is also a vote-winner for any political party which commits funding to repair our roads.

“Addressing our ever-worsening roads crisis has to be a national priority. Recent harsh winters and decades of underfunding by successive governments have created a national backlog of road repairs that would take £12 billion and a decade for councils to fix.

“This will only get worse with the Government’s own traffic projections predicting a potential increase in local traffic of more than 40 per cent by 2040. Long-term and consistent investment is now desperately needed to allow councils to embark on widespread improvement of our roads.”