Bradford boosts maintenance budget to £8.9m

Bradford Council has boosted its road maintenance budget to £8.9m.

But the authority has admitted it will not be enough to tackle an increasing backlog of work to bring the district’s roads up to scratch.

The council said ‘harsh winter weather’ had caused roads across the district to deteriorate at a faster rate than it can keep up with and an increase in its roads budget from £6.5m last year would only allow it to “maintain the condition” of the network.

In December, it was announced Bradford would receive £1.58m in extra Government funding for road maintenance over the next two years as part of a £333m fund announced in the Chancellor's autumn statement.

A Council spokesman said its roads maintenance budget for this year included some of that money, as well as extra allocation from its own funds.

He told the Telegraph and Argus: “This will not clear the backlog but will allow us to maintain the condition of the roads.

“The recent harsh winter weather has increased deterioration of our roads and has contributed to the backlog.

“Costs in the highway maintenance industry have risen quite quickly, partly due to increasing oil prices.”

Responding to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the authority revealed last year it had resurfaced 59 roads at a cost of £1.9m and ‘surface dressed’ 188, costing £1.5m.

A further 50 roads received micro asphalt surfacing at a cost of £101,100.

The spokesman said there were ‘no hard and fast rules’ about which roads are surface dressed and which are resurfaced, but it was not a consequence of funding cuts.

“It depends on which roads are in the greatest need of repair to prevent further deterioration,” he said.

“Surface dressing is a very cost effective way of achieving this as well as restoring the road surface skid resistance.

“Other treatments are also used where they are a better option, including road resurfacing and micro asphalt.”