Austerity? they've bankrupted the country by spending like drunken sailors and borrowing to levels that cannot be serviced, try that sort of financial wizardry at home and you'd be in tent city in no time.

Everywhere is the same (apart from areas such as the Cotswolds, the preserve of the elites), our roads are in ruins...try a drive down Abbey Road and Acton Lane through Park Royal and if your suspension survives return to the Nth Circular via Brentfield Road Harlesden, that'll finish it or the underbody off, or try the B rated side roads off into the fens the Northern side of Boston, it can be truly scary trying not to be pulled into the ditches where the roadsides are collapsing....take a google maps drive down Abbey/Acton for the hell of it.

We're not going to get out of the mess they've created, and why anyone would think the same people who caused all of this have a single clue how to get out of it is beyond me.

The answer for the future, for as long as you're allowed your own car, is high aspect tyres long travel suspension decent ride height and tough mechanicals, there will be no money for roads whilst they waste £billlions of loot borrowed in the taxpayers name on white elephants too numerous to list.

Millions of roads spending in West Yorkshire has moved from local government to the mayoral authority and they have to jump as high as central government tell them in order to get the money.

Mayoral Authority only deal with significant capital projects, so the city centres of Leeds and Bradford in particular are both places its now almost impossible to drive. Main routes are ripped up and changed beyond all recognition. Up until today I'd worked out new routes, today another road is closed and a diversion is in place. I know someone working with one of the Leeds contractors, she started on site in summer 22, the current works are due to complete Christmas '26!

Meanwhile the main route between the two cities is a pot holed embarrasment because Leeds Council don't have the millions required to do a complete resurfacing job.

In a similar vein huge capital sums paid on city centre repaving which looks great until the utilities turn up and fill it with tarmac and it can't be repaired, so the scar remains for years.

Ved was supposedly ringfenced for use on the roads from 2020 when , back in 2017 the then chancellor George Osborne altered it..

Don't understand this - George was Chancellor until 2016, not 2017.

Phillip Hammond made some commitment to ring fencing VED in 2018 budget. He was gone by July 2019.

Since the we have had Boris, Brexit and Covid - whether a six year old aspiration (commitment?) was never implemented is somewhat academic.

Don't understand this - George was Chancellor until 2016, not 2017.

yes, Osborne did it when he was chancellor, the changes were supposed to come into force from 2017 so you could buy a fiesta 1.0 for example, on the 31 March 2017, and pay zero ved, but if you bought the same car on the 1st April 2017, it would cost £130 in ved, the government would use this for general taxation until 2020, then the revenue collected would be spent on the roads..