Asphalt Industry Alliance response to DfT’s Pothole Action Fund figures
Asphalt Industry Alliance'S Rick Green response to DfT’s Pothole Action Fund figures saying local authorities must be given the resources they need to maintain our roads.
Any additional funding for road maintenance will be appreciated by hard-pressed local authorities’ highway teams. However, the £100 million extra for the Pothole Action Fund for England announced earlier this week, will not do much to tackle our failing roads – it’s just papering over the cracks.
Our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey 2018, launched just last week, reported that English authorities need an additional £389 million a year just to keep the carriageway in reasonable order. And, more than £8 billion would be needed to carry out a one-time catch-up to bring local roads in England up to scratch.
With one in five roads now classed as structurally poor, the most efficient way to deal with the problem of our failing roads is to provide local authorities with the resources they need to maintain them properly.
