Money councils have been forced to cut from road maintenance
funding since 2010 could have paid for the repair of nearly 8
million potholes, analysis by the Local Government Association
reveals today.
To coincide with the LGA’s Annual Conference in
Bournemouth, town hall leaders are calling on the Government to
use this year’s Spending Review to deliver a long-term funding
plan “to save our roads”.
Latest figures show that the amount of money councils have
been able to spend on routine road maintenance has fallen from
£1.1 billion in 2009/10 to around £701 million in 2017/18 – a 37
per cent reduction.
Routine road maintenance includes minor road repairs such
as potholes, cleaning drains, inspection and fixing street
lighting.
The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales,
estimates that this reduction could have covered the cost of
repairing 7.8 million potholes.
With councils having lost 60p out of every £1 in central
government funding between 2010 and 2020, services such as road
maintenance have had to be stripped back to pay for an ongoing
surge in demand for children’s services, adult social care
support and homelessness support.
Councils are fixing a pothole every 17 seconds but it will
still take more than £9 billion and a decade to tackle our road
repairs backlog. Adequate government investment in the Spending
Review is needed to make long-term improvements on our
dilapidated roads.
The LGA’s Transport spokesman, Cllr Martin Tett,
said:
“Potholes can be the bane of the motorist’s life. They can
damage vehicles and cause accidents.
“Councils are on the side of the motorist, and are doing
all they can to keep our roads safe and resilient, repairing
potholes as quickly as they can.
“But unprecedented funding cuts have meant councils are
increasingly limited in how much they can invest in looking after
our country’s roads.
“It is not right that the Government spends 43 times per
mile more on maintaining our national roads – which make up just
3 per cent of all roads – than on local roads, which are
controlled by councils and make up 97 per cent of England’s road
network.
“While the extra one-off funding announced in recent years
has helped, we need government to follow with a long-term funding
plan to save our roads in the Spending Review.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. Councils spent £1,113,694,000 on
environmental, safety and routine maintenance of principle and
other LA roads in 2009/10 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/387065/RO2.xls
They spent £701,429,000 in 2017/18 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/787852/RO2_2017-18_data_by_LA_-_revised.xlsx
This amounts to a £412,265,000 reduction, which could cover
the cost of paying for 7.8 million pothole repairs, based on an
average pothole repair cost of £53.
2. Estimated average pothole repair
costs http://www.asphaltuk.org/wp-content/uploads/alarm-survey-2019-digital.pdf
3. ALARM survey key facts – councils fixing a
pothole every 17 seconds http://www.asphaltuk.org/alarm-survey-page/