A PETITION calling on the government for a fairer way of looking at how it dishes out money for road repairs has amassed almost 7,000 signatures.

The petition, launched by Surrey county councillor Edward Hawkins and backed by Wrecclesham Village Voice, says the state of Surrey’s roads are awful but a wider approach at looking at how cash is distributed is needed.

Mr Hawkins says Surrey has the third highest traffic movement in the country, but because it has fewer road in terms of miles compared to other counties, such as Hampshire and Devon, it is given less money.

And now he is trying to drum up support for a debate in Parliament on the formula used to determine this.

The Tory councillor for Parkside needs 10,000 signatures to get the issue debated in the House of Commons. As the Herald went to press he had just over 6,700 signatures but is determined to get more.

Mr Hawkins said: “All through the winter we were getting all these complaints about potholes and they really are awful. All we were getting was ‘nobody is doing anything about potholes’ so I thought I would take this up and try and do something about this.”

Mr Hawkins said a recent pothole fund awarded Surrey £1.8 million but in comparison gave Hampshire £2.9m and Devon £4.4m. SCC has dedicated £20m towards emergency road repairs this year in the wake of last winter’s ‘Beast from the East’.

The road formula is based on the number of A, B and C roads as well as motorways and not on the amount of cars on the road.

Commenting on the petition earlier this year, a spokesman for Wrecclesham Village Voice, a community group campaigning for highways improvements in the area, said: “We agree funding for roads maintenance and pothole repair would be more fairly allocated if calculated on roads usage information.

“Ultimately vehicles using the roads are responsible for road surface damage and funding should reflect this risk.”

View and sign the petition online at petition.parliament.uk/petitions/217930.