A draft North Wales transport plan has highlighted the safety implications of crumbling roads, with one authority’s maintenance backlog estimated at £138 per resident.
Taith, representing North Wales’ six unitary authorities, is due next month to approve the final version of its regional transport plan (RTP), which will be used from April to distribute Welsh Assembly Government transport grants. The provisional RTP indicates that highways backlogs exceed £9M at four of the authorities.
The biggest backlog shown, £12.8M, is Denbighshire’s, the second-smallest North Wales authority by population. This backlog equates to about £138 per head, compared with about £100 per head for Wales as a whole. Almost half of Denbighshire’s backlog is on C roads, and B roads account for £3.4M.
The figures were compiled using SCANNER laser surveys of all A and B roads, and 10% samples of C and unclassified roads, says the provisional RTP. It notes: ‘Poor condition of highways can have an impact on safety as well as ride quality.’ The figures derive from a CSS (County Surveyors’ Society) report in 2006, before the run of wet summers and last winter’s cold snap.
Earlier this summer, Rhondda Cynon Taf council told a Welsh Assembly committee: ‘The experience and knowledge of local authority engineers and visual inspection of the network often reveals roads that SCANNER indicates are in good condition to be in very poor condition and requiring immediate works. Many local authority engineers consider the SCANNER-identified backlog to be significantly underestimating the actual maintenance requirements.’
CSS Wales chairman, Dave Faulkner, said the figures in Taith’s provisional RTP related to carriageways only. ‘All assets within and on the highway, such as footways and streetlighting, require significant investment just to maintain a steady state.’
He said local authorities hoped the WAG would continue its road maintenance grant after this year.
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