Councils boost their assets with £9M grant

13 December 2008

The Department for Transport has increased the size of the asset management fund by a further £9M, but wants local highway authorities to show immediate benefits.

There is now £32M available in total to be spent in 2008/09, which minister for local transport, Paul Clark, said would help authorities ‘ensure that the public get what they want from their local highway network’.

As revealed at Surveyor’s Bridges 2008 conference, the money is available for both authorities which have made less progress on producing transport asset management plans, and for those which are further ahead (Surveyor, 13 March).

The additional £9M, however, is for the former group, those furthest behind, to collect data for their inventories on the condition of their highways, bridges and other transport assets. Only £7.5M of the £32M will be for the high-achievers to ‘make innovative use of data in making investment and maintenance decisions’.

However, the department, fearful that councils might simply use the money to carry out work they were doing in any event, has now warned that it wants all applications to yield benefits in the year that it is spent.

The County Surveyors’ Society has said budgets would have maximum impact through a better understanding of the rate at which assets depreciate, and the effect of treating or repairing assets after certain intervals – and with different techniques. The new money is revenue. The previously-announced £23M for the fund was capital. Work to collect and collate additional data and analyse it will involve revenue costs such as for the necessary staff.

Councils only have until next Friday (19 December) to submit applications for the cash, which will be released next March and June.

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