Our local roads

Quite a few of our road surfaces are in a poor state. As a regular cyclist in the area, I am especially aware of this and spend half the cycling time trying to avoid potholes.

Someone recently brought to my attention the poor state of Moorshut Road in Hemsworth. It’s not good. I’ve written to the council about it, and they’ve promised to re-surface it as soon as possible.

But it’s not the only one that needs work. There’s no denying we should give some attention to our local transport. There aren’t enough trains round here, and the bus services are being cut back all the time -; so when our roads aren’t good enough the impact is much bigger.

It’s hard for councils to give local transport infrastructure the attention it needs. Since 2010, councils have become more and more overstretched and underfunded. Across Yorkshire one in every three pounds which they spend has been taken from council Budgets. I have noticed that the cuts in wealthier areas elsewhere in the country have been much less than they are for Wakefield Council.

Our roads aren’t the only thing suffering because of this. Slashed council Budgets have resulted in a closed libraries, slashed children’s centres and a crisis in social care. In fact, lots of councils are looking at raising council tax and business rates in order to fill the massive holes left by the government.

The government wants to avoid the blame for tax rises so they are making councils put the taxes up -; but richer areas are able to raise much more because their local populations are much more affluent.

I want our council to be able to sort out the roads across our area so we can all benefit. I also want them to be able to fund all the other services crucial to our communities.

A Labour Government would properly fund local government, meaning they would no longer be forced to cut local services.

If you want to give our local Government the funding it needs so it can sort out our roads, vote Labour.