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Rural Roads

I do. The hon. Member raises a really good point. This is not just about a pothole in the road; it is about the impact on people’s lives and businesses.

That leads me on very nicely to my next point. This is not just about car damage; it is about road safety. We are talking about people’s lives here. Beyond damage to a tire, which can be upsetting or annoying, and is not what anyone wants to see, there is also an impact on safety and people’s lives. People swerve to miss potholes. Why do they swerve? They swerve because the pothole might not have been there a few days earlier, or they might be driving on a new road. It could be at night. It could be raining. All of a sudden, they see a crater that, if they hit it, will take off the front of their car and could leave them in the side of the road, so they swerve.

We recently had this in South Shropshire: somebody swerved and ended up down a bank. A resident in Cleehill also sent me a photo of a car upturned from having swerved to avoid a pothole. I also had a personal experience: two Fridays ago, I finished speaking at an event in the evening. As I came out of Much Wenlock, I was the third person on the scene after a car had overturned, up towards Harley Bank. A woman was screaming, covered in blood. I thank the first two people on the scene. I gave first aid until the police got there. Although it was a serious incident, the woman who brought out a blanket from her house and did an excellent job, said, “Oh, don’t worry—it’s our MP. All will be good.” I was a medic trained in the military; I am not sure how many MPs can give first aid.

The point is that the local residents did a great job. The car was written off. The woman was lucky; it could have been far worse. I thank the ambulance crew and the police for the work they did. According to the lady who lives in that house, it was the third serious accident that she had seen there since August.