As the new executive member for Highways and Transport I, and my deputy David Chopping, have been busy since the new year getting up to speed with the brief.

This includes everything transport from potholes to overflying routes, railways, our multi-million pound new roads and parking.

Highways is something which effects everyone in the Borough and my postbag is full, partly with emails about potholes and road repairs. Funding for roads is taken from the normal council budget and we spend approximately £2.3 million a year on road maintenance.

This year we also received a one-off grant of another £1.2 million, from the Government, to be spent specifically on road maintenance. This is a welcome boost for our road network repairs, allowing us to tackle some of the smaller roads which otherwise miss out.

Every two years we survey all our roads with specialised machinery measuring wear and condition.

This data, together with current road works plans, has allowed us to allocate the money to the roads where it is most needed.

I will be lobbying throughout the year for more funds to allow us to tackle more of the underlying issues.

The second item featuring in my postbag is congestion, we have an ambitious programme of new road building in the Borough to help deal with this.

Last year we received a grant of £6.6 million towards the Winnersh relief road phase 2 and last month we received a further £5 million, towards the South Wokingham distributor road which is designed to open in 2020.

Highways England are also working on the M4 smart motorway. I am meeting Highways England later this month, with Sir John Redwood, to talk about congestion on the A329m which is causing issues for residents travelling between Reading and Bracknell – we have some ideas and are looking forward to seeing what we can do to improve the situation.

I will also take the opportunity to raise problems of congestion on other major strategic routes such as the A33.

Finally, we have just launched a new Highways Page on Facebook. There are a lot of roadworks in the area, both those done by the Borough and those run by the utility companies.

We recognise that these disruptions, despite careful planning, can cause issues for residents going about their lives and this page provides advance warning and details to help people adjust their journeys if they can.

There are lots of exciting things going on in highways which are aimed at improving everyone’s ability to move around and through the Borough, these can cause inconvenience whilst they are being done and I would like to thank residents for their patience and understanding.