The cost of Norfolk’s highways maintenance backlog has jumped from £70.4M to £126.7M in just one year.
A report on the county council’s highway asset performance says a budget of £111.4M is needed for 2010-11, significantly above the anticipated budget of £31.6M, to return the network to its condition in 2006/07.
The backlog has widened largely due to a static structural maintenance budget, combined with inflation. The budget has remained almost unchanged in cash terms from 2004-05 to 2009-10, but in real terms has reduced by around 32%, due to construction inflation exceeding general inflation. However, the change is also due to the use of 100% of C-road in the survey.
The condition of U-roads has especially taken a toll since 2006, with the backlog standing at £29M. The council report recommends a budget for U-roads of £30.8M for next year, compared with this year’s budget of just £1.6M – which was reduced from £4.5M the previous year ‘to concentrate funding on the B and C-roads’.
The value of the A-road backlog is around £20M, indicative of insufficient investment in the network, ‘particularly at early stages of deterioration which could be addressed by more cost-effective, earlier intervention treatments such as surface dressing’.
The report, which uses data compiled in September and October, before the winter’s adverse weather conditions, concludes that the overall asset will continue to deteriorate without additional investment.
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