The outlook for road maintenance worsened significantly over the last year, as even rising budgets fell increasingly short of spending need, according to the blacktop industry.
Its aptly-named ALARM – Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance – snapshot of highway engineers’ views, paints a pessimistic overall picture, despite some positive findings. Based on returns from just over half of authorities, it suggests the shortfall in road structural budgets increased by 74% in England to £1.6bn, or an average of £14.3M per authority.
The gap in Wales widened by 38%, to £151M – £4.7M per council – reversing improvements detected by the survey in 2005. In London, which fared better on most measures, the shortfall shrank by 44% to £60M – £1.8M per borough.
Highway engineers outside the capital believe they get only one-third of the budget they need, against 38% in Wales and 58% in London. Given adequate funding, it would take 11-12 years to clear English and Welsh authorities’ maintenance backlogs, and around seven years in London. The Asphalt Industry Alliance notes the backlog has been static for the last two years. Despite the backdrop of a real-terms decline in highways funding nationally (Surveyor, 15 July 2004), ALARM reports a 25% increase in maintenance budgets. But it claims this was more than offset by the ‘gathering pace’ of deterioration from previous under-spending. English authorities have also managed to reduce the share of their budgets devoted to reactive maintenance for the fourth year to a healthy 15% – compared with 19% in Wales and 21% in London.
There was a significant reduction in the cost of compensation claims, which halved in England. But the AIA said it was too early to claim this as a trend. In Wales, at least, the 30% saving had been tempered by a 50% increase in officers’ time. ‘Today’s patch-and-mend mentality is a very poor use of funding and it is failing to address the underlying maintenance issues facing us,’ warned Jim Crick, AIA chairman.
The County Surveyors’ Society shared the industry’s concerns, said ~Matthew Lugg~, chairman of its highways management group. Spending had plateaued and was set to reduce, due to inflationary pressures. Increased investment had improved condition in recent years. ‘It’ll be interesting to see whether that holds up in next month’s national road maintenance condition survey,’ he added. Higher funding had allowed a shift from reactive to planned maintenance, but budgetary pressures could see a return to ‘firefighting’.
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