Senior Reform UK MPs visit Staffordshire to learn about JCB’s Pothole Pro
Senior Reform UK MPs’ have visited Staffordshire today to learn more about JCB’s Pothole Pro and the impact it could have on roads throughout the country.
Robert Jenrick and Lee Anderson sat down with JCB chairman, Lord Bamford at the manufacturing company’s headquarters in Uttoxeter.
Last year Lord Bamford, who has historically been a supporter of the Conservative Party but stepped down as a Tory peer in 2024, donated £200,000 each to both Reform UK and the Conservatives. At the time the world’s third-largest construction equipment company said it wanted to support parties that ‘believed in small business.”
The JCB Pothole Pro can fix and repair potholes in under eight minutes and works up to four times quicker than traditional methods. JCB says one machine would be able to repair 700 potholes a month and costs just £30 per square metre.
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Lee Anderson MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire said: “First and foremost we’ve come here to look at the Pothole Pro machines. The roads are in a real state all over the country so we’ve come to look at them with a view of having some in our constituencies.
“We’re also speaking to Lord Bamford about our economy, our industry. As a Reform Member of Parliament, with Robert Jenrick as well, we’ve come for some advice. You could not come to a better place in the county to get advice on business – especially starting from a small business to a multinational.
“The Labour government has got a cabinet of people at the moment who’ve never run a business, you think the very least they would do is speak to business. What we’re doing as a party is speaking to big businesses like JCB but more importantly we’re speaking to small businesses on a daily basis.”
Robert Jenrick MP for Newark and stood in the 2010 general election for Newcastle-under-Lyme added: “The number one issue in my MP mailbag is potholes and I’m sure that’s replicated across the county. People feel hard up right now with wages stagnating and bills rising and the last thing they need is the cost and inconvenience of cars being damaged and tyres destroyed by potholes.
“JCB has produced a world class machine, which has the potential to fill potholes faster than they are today and I’ve come to see it for myself and encourage local councils, including my own in Nottinghamshire to take them up and get this problem fixed as soon as possible.”
Staffordshire is consulting on changes to local councils, commonly called local government reorganisation. It would mean the end of all district and borough councils, including both Staffordshire County and Stoke-on-Trent City councils.
Jenrick continued: “Well there are some advantages in consolidating local councils and making them more efficient. But I am sceptical because it often leads to local councils that are even more remote from their communities and the savings often simply don’t materialise. What Reform wants to see are the voices of the people actually listened to in shaping these proposals at the moment.”
He claimed: “At the moment the government seems very out of touch, they’re cancelling elections, scrapping jury trials, restricting freedom of speech and changing councils without properly consulting the very people who should be at the heart of it.”
