Local road budgets fall way behind demand

The shortfall in local road maintenance budgets has increased a shocking 74% across England (excluding London) and 32% in Wales over the last year, according to the Asphalt Industry Alliance’s (AIA) Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) Survey 2006.

The survey, which registers the comments of local highway engineers, found the shortfall in road maintenance across England had increased to £1.6bn compared to £943m in 2005. In Wales the figure rose to £151m from the previous year’s figure of £114m.

London, regulated by Transport for London, showed an improvement with its budget shortfall dropping from £109m last year to £60m - a fall of 44%.

The worrying condition of the local road network, which makes up 95% of the UK’s roads, comes against a backdrop of increased funding for maintenance of 24% to £780.4m in England and 134% to £92.2m in Wales.

However, only 32% of authorities across England received the budgets they required, a fall from 40% last year. The situation was slightly better in Wales with 38% of authorities getting the funds they need, an improvement on the 2005 figure of 28%.

Engineers interviewed for the survey were pessimistic about the chances of getting the sufficient funds for roads. One stated: "I’m using corporate manslaughter as a threat to get more funds." Another added: ‘Fluctuating annual funding levels really don’t help planning."

Asked whether councillors understood the issues of funding road maintenance adequately, 45% of respondents said ‘no’ in England. This rose to a ‘no’ percentage of 70% in Wales; London fared better with only 17% giving a ‘no’ vote.

AIA chairman Jim Crick said: “The stark headline figure in this year’s report is the huge estimated shortfall of over £1.6bn in the road structural maintenance budget in England – nearly £8m per local authority.

“Highways engineers in England estimate that even if they were given all the funds needed today, it would take over 10 years to clear the overdue maintenance work. In Wales the situation is even worse; with engineers claiming it will take over 12 years to catch up.”