The improving trend in the state of England’s local roads continued last year, as even neglected country lanes showed the benefits of increased maintenance.
Results from the 2005 national road maintenance condition survey show year-on-year reductions in disrepair across the board, although not in Wales, where investment has, in real terms, declined.
But the positive trend in England’s visual road survey could also be about to end, given the freeze since last April in maintenance funding, as high inflation erodes highways budgets.
Deflectograph surveys continue to raise concerns about roads’ underlying structural strength. The percentage of the principal network requiring close monitoring has increased steadily from just under 15% in 2000 to 18.5% in 2005.
Footways are the other major concern, but the proportion showing major deterioration has dipped below the one-quarter mark after a decade of mounting disrepair.
NRMCS had made clear the strong link between levels of maintenance spending and road condition, said Gordon Prangnell, chair of the working group overseeing the survey. The defects indices for most road types have now fallen to their lowest levels for around 20 years. Government statisticians were cautious about one-year changes, but audit work had bolstered confidence that the improvement was real, said Prangnell.
Increased government investment was paying dividends, said ~Matthew Lugg~ chairman of the UK Roads Board. NRMCS showed how, having brought main roads up to standard, highway authorities were tackling lesser roads and footways.
But both engineers urged caution. The structural survey suggests councils could be spreading the extra money thinly to improve best value indicators.
‘That’s a worry,’ agreed Prangnell, even though the results might be skewed as authorities carried out fewer deflectograph surveys, targeting the most suspect sites. He is writing to county surveyors and others, stressing the need to continue deflectographs as Scanner machines take over visual survey work.
Calling for comprehensive monitoring to support asset management planning, Lugg insisted the deflectograph was ‘absolutely essential’ as an engineering tool to help ensure funding was spent cost effectively.
There was a danger the 2005 report could send the wrong signals, leading to complacency in the Government, he warned. ‘The survey results are a year out of date. The full implications of the comprehensive spending review freeze have not come through.’
Meanwhile, the Roads Liaison Group has backed the board’s proposal for a UK road condition report. Scottish local authority performance indicators are included in the 2005 report for the first time.