Introduce an offence to the Highways Act for failure to maintain public roads

We believe that despite adequate tax revenue the public roads infrastructure has been poorly maintained and often poses a risk of damage to vehicles and to the safety of road users. The Highways Act 1980 places a duty of care on Authorities but without any sanction for failure to do so. We are concerned that Authorities have developed defensive procedures to deter and limit private claims whilst continuing to avoid their obligations under the Act. To correct this, we want sanctions for 'failure to maintain' to be set within the Act.