The County Surveyors’ Society has protested over the Department for Transport’s apparent acceptance that highways maintenance will only receive annual increases of two per cent at most for a decade.

The DfT assumed in supplementary advice on the regional funding allocations that capital funding for maintenance would rise by two per cent each year from 2011/12 to 2018/19 (Surveyor, 4 September).

This would mean the £602.4M already announced for 2010/11 would rise to £614M in 2011/12.

But Matthew Lugg, chair of the CSS engineering committee, said: ‘You should base your investment strategies on an assessment of what needs to be done, not on how much you think the Treasury will give you.’

The 2% figure was ‘completely arbitrary,’ and overlooked construction inflation running at 8-12%. ‘We’re in a business susceptible to increases in oil prices,’ said Lugg.