Small businesses call on government to fix the nation’s roads on Pothole Day
Ahead of National Pothole Day (15 January), the Federation of Small Businesses is calling on the Government to deliver on its manifesto pledge to provide £2 billion in funding to fill the thousands of potholes blighting streets across the nation.
FSB’s own findings show that across England, 700,000 potholes were reported in 2018/19, covering around 28km, the equivalent height of 292 Big Bens.
In total, almost £1 billion was spent fixing damaged roads and holes in 2018/19.
FSB National Chair Mike Cherry, said: “When roads are poorly maintained, this can seriously hamper small firms from going about their business by causing significant damage to vehicles that are often critical to businesses often working without large capital reserves.
“Ahead of the 2019 general election, we called on the next Government to not only provide funding to fill potholes that are causing millions of pounds of damage every year, but to go further and ensure that local councils have the resources to provide ongoing road maintenance.
“While money is important, simply offering piecemeal funding will not fix the problem at hand, which is why equipping local authorities with the means to fix and maintain roads is so critically important.
“Prioritising this will mean that road defects are stopped from developing into potholes, saving time and money further down the line.”
FSB has previously called for meaningful action to maintain the nation’s roads including more local authority funding, greater co-ordination between councils and utility companies, a clearer and simpler system to report potholes as well as upgraded technology to track and detect road problems early.
Emilie Vallauri is a 27-year-old program manager at Techstars with a passion for innovation. Born and raised in Nice, France, Emilie studied business and political sciences before embarking on a career punctuated by innovation and supporting startups.
Zsuzsa has been instrumental in growing Antavo from a startup to a scaleup. As Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder, she is transforming the company into a unique loyalty technology vendor, offering a next-gen, best-in-class solution to the loyalty sector.
Software engineering and product development is my specialisation - and I have had a wide range of experience across the industry. I had a brilliant 22-year long career at IBM, working across a number of roles, which I really loved.
Holly Zoccolan is an entrepreneur and Founder of new parenting app, Carol. Before Founding Carol and entering the tech space, Holly built successful online wellness brand The Health Zoc in 2016.
Anna Gudmundson is the CEO and co-founder of Sensate, a device that emits infrasonic waves that are synchronised to resonate with the specially composed hemispheric audio in the app.
Rebecca is Senior Vice President of Clients, Partnership and Creative Transformation at CreativeX, provider of an industry-first AI driven data platform to help the world’s most loved brands including PepsiCo, Nestle and Facebook achieve creative excellence.
Bitcoin, the digital currency conceived in 2009 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, is a financial phenomenon. Despite the volatility of global markets, it has demonstrated remarkable resilience.