Road conditions in West Sussex are worse than at any other time people can recall. As champions for our communities, we are calling on West Sussex County Council to act now to bring road maintenance in the county back up to an acceptable level.

This petition is being run in accordance with West Sussex County Council's petition scheme, with just 3,000 valid signatures we can force county councillors to debate the issue, the more signatures the greater the pressure on the county council to act.

For a signature to be valid the county council needs to check it belongs to someone who lives, works or studies in the area, so please supply an accurate name and postcode. Any names and postcodes collected will be shared solely with West Sussex County Council and will only be used for the purpose of securing a debate on the petition.

Please make sure to share the petition with friends and family and many thanks for your support.

With best wishes,

Chris Philipsborn, Labour candidate for Arundel and South Downs
Clare Walsh, Labour candidate for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton
Tom Collinge, Labour candidate for Chichester
Peter Lamb, Labour candidate for Crawley
Ben Cox, Labour candidate for East Grinstead and Uckfield
Tom Rutland, Labour candidate for East Worthing and Shoreham
James Field, Labour candidate for Horsham
Dave Rowntree, Labour candidate for Mid Sussex
Beccy Cooper, Labour candidate for Worthing West

Petition: We demand that West Sussex County Council repairs our roads

Residents across West Sussex have grown tired of the endless potholes blighting our roads. We demand action by the county council to restore local road conditions to an acceptable level.

The public highway is the one council service which every resident relies upon. Under the Highways Act (1980), West Sussex County Council have a legal duty to maintain our roads and ensure that the public are able to use local roads without obstruction. Unfortunately, in reality the experience of residents suggests that this legal duty is not being met.

In 2022/23, the latest council year for which figures are available, West Sussex County Council received the third highest number of pothole claims in the entire country, with over £210,000 of taxpayers’ money being lost to compensation claims over the last five years.

There is no doubt that the impact of ongoing real-terms cuts to council funding by the Government means that there is now less funding available to pay for core council services, even with the significant increases in West Sussex County Council’s share of local council tax over the last decade.

Despite this, there are sources of funding available to the county council which are not yet being utilised, including the sale or leasing of the 1,950,434 m2 of currently vacant council land and property around the county (with the sites in Crawley-alone potentially generating £1m of additional revenue annually) and the windfall boost in council tax the council is set to receive as a result of districts and boroughs adopting an empty home premium on unoccupied second homes.

We call upon West Sussex County Council to:

• Make a public commitment to increase the volume and quality of road maintenance work across the county
• Undertake a review of all potential sources of new revenue open to the county council in order to maximise the funding available for additional road maintenance works
• Ensure that all future Highways, Transport and Planning Delivery Programmes allocate road maintenance schemes between districts and boroughs on an equitable basis