The Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) has put out a call for action to address the state of the UK's deteriorating local road network.
With National Pothole Day 2017 taking place today (16 January), the RSTA has published a compendium of facts and figures which highlight the condition of local roads.
The 2016 statistics, pulled from a wide range of sources, underline the result of decades of under-investment in maintaining the UK’s most important infrastructure asset. According to the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey it would cost £11.8 billion and take 14 years to fix the current backlog of pothole repairs. The Local Government Association reports that the government plans to invest £1.1 million per mile of motorway and trunk road which accounts for just 3% of the total road network yet will spend only £27,000 per mile on local roads despite their making up 97% of the total road network and carrying two-thirds of all traffic. Meanwhile, motoring organisation RAC states that last year 31,483 compensation claims for vehicle damage were submitted against councils and the AA reports that 39% of its members’ vehicles have suffered from pothole damage.
“The evidence is there for all to see, and for tyres and axles to be damaged, despite the best efforts of councils in repairing over two million potholes last year. The magnitude of the task due to decades of under-investment means that the local road network continues on its downward spiral”, said Howard Robinson, RSTA chief executive.
RSTA has called for a number of actions to address this continued deterioration. This includes government realising the need for proper levels of predicted, long-term maintenance funding that should be ring-fenced for local road spending and investing an additional annual £1 billion that come from providing an additional 2p from the existing fuel duty. In addition, all local highway authorities should sign up to best practice asset management to ensure that they have the most cost-effective maintenance approach and all road users should keep up the pressure by reporting all potholes that need repair.
“National Pothole Day is about focusing attention on the poor state of our local road network. The facts and figures compiled by RSTA underline how necessary that focus is”, adds Robinson.
‘Potholes: The Vital Statistics’ is available as a free download from: http://www.rsta-uk.org/pot-holes-vital-statistics/
