The need to address local road maintenance

Howard Robinson, chief executive of the Road Surface Treatments Association, believes that the upcoming Autumn Statement should address the decades of under-investment that has left our local roads in a continuing state of decline.

Chancellor Philip Hammond is being called upon to do something that few previous chancellors have done - demonstrate a real understanding that good local road maintenance is essential for the socio-economic well-being of the country. His forthcoming Autumn Statement should address the decades of under-investment that has left our local roads in a continuing state of decline.

The failure to appreciate the true socio-economic worth of a well-maintained road network is underlined by the fact that the government has, over many decades, failed to provide adequate funding for road maintenance. Central government seems to be unable to understand that the local road network is the essential link to the national road network, rail stations, ports and airports. It is also the main means of access to people’s homes, to schools, hospitals and businesses.

In addition to this indifference towards the need for proper levels of road maintenance funding, local authorities, due to dwindling overall resources, are often forced to raid their road maintenance budgets to fund other services. After years of cut-backs and under-investment the latest Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey, published by the Asphalt Industry Alliance, found that it would cost £12 billion and take 14 years to bring the local road network up to an adequate standard. The lack of investment funding demonstrates how short-changed motorists are. Road taxes raise some £5 billion a year whilst fuel duty raises a further £27 billion. There is a huge discrepancy between what motorists pay in tax and what is spent on maintaining the roads that they pay tax to drive on.

Noting the maintenance role
Unfortunately road maintenance is not glamourous. It does not have the news impact of expanding the trunk road network with new motorways or investing in high speed rail links. Nevertheless it is essential. The local road network is an asset that promotes economic viability and social well-being. Businesses can trade. People can live their lives.

There are further reasons to ensure that we have a well-maintained road network. Maintenance is crucial to the safety of the road network. Poorly maintained potholed roads and those that have lost their skid resistance are a safety hazard. Then there are the financial costs to road users. Vehicles using deteriorating roads consume more fuel and may need more repairs. There is also a compensation cost for local authorities. In 2015, according to the Local Government Association, they had to pay over £53 million in compensation to drivers for vehicular damage resulting from potholes. This is money that local authorities can ill afford.

A survey from the RAC clearly demonstrates the impact of poorly maintained roads. It found that the number of cars damaged by potholes has more than doubled over the last ten years. 21,500 cars rescued by the RAC over the last 12 months had suffered damage where the main contributory factor was potholes. This is a 126 per cent increase over the numbers of cars rescued in 2006. The damage includes broken suspension springs, distorted wheels and damaged shock absorbers. The RAC survey confirms what most road users already know: the condition of the local roads has deteriorated drastically in the last decade.

Local highway authorities are increasingly adopting new asset management and preventative maintenance policies and examining all possible cost efficiencies in order to tackle the enormous challenge that faces them. Over the last year they have filled in over two million potholes. However, the lack of long-term funding means that much of this is expensive reactive repair rather than cost-effective preventative maintenance that would have prevented the potholes from forming in the first place. This has long been the logical economic argument forwarded by the road maintenance industry. Investing in programmes of planned cost-effective long-term preventative maintenance is far more cost effective that undertaking expensive emergency short-term patch-and-mend. It costs only £2m2 to surface dress and maintain a road but costs an average £57m2 to repair potholes.

Decades of underfunding
Despite the best efforts of local authorities, the impact of decades of underfunding plus current and future budget restraints means that local roads will continue to deteriorate due to lack of funding. The ALARM survey found that overall budgets for road maintenance have fallen by 16 per cent. Indeed, the government’s own statistics indicate that English councils’ budgets for highways and transportation are to suffer a significant loss of 10.6 per cent in 2016-17 compared with last year.

The Local Authority Revenue Expenditure and Financing: 2016-17 Budget, England report from the Department for Communities and Local Government demonstrates a fall of £521 million in highways and transportation budgets (from £4.9 billion to £4.4 billion). The Department said that the funding drop was ‘largely driven by a decrease to the support to operators provided by local authorities’. In order to support current levels of support for public transport operators, councils may be forced to raid road maintenance budgets. Given the poor state of many of our local roads this is of concern.

The new Chancellor could start addressing the issue of local road maintenance funding by correcting the anomaly that local roads will not receive any monies from the new vehicle excise duty road fund announced by the previous Chancellor, George Osborne.

The new fund, to be introduced in 2017, is only for trunk roads and motorways. It is not available for local roads which represent 98 per cent of the UK road network. It is unfortunate that the majority of roads used by the majority of traffic will not benefit from this fund. The government has announced that from 2015 to 2021 it is to provide £6 billion for local road maintenance yet over the same period drivers in England will provide over £30 billion in vehicle excise duty. Hammond should demonstrate that he understands the importance of the local road network and use the road fund to invest in both the national and local road network.

The case for funding a well-maintained road network is strong. The government must recognise the social and economic benefits of an efficient local road network. If the Chancellor wants a positive economic legacy he should provide real levels of investment in local roads and work with local authorities to develop long-term funding mechanisms that enable the implementation of programmes of planned maintenance.