Inconsistent roads funding leads to quick fixes rather than long term solutions reports ALARM 21 survey

 The 2021 survey, now in its 26th year, highlights that inconsistent local roads funding leads to quick fixes rather than long term solutions:

 

  • There has been a reported 15 per cent increase but they are still lower than they were two years ago, and there has been no significant improvement to road conditions.
  • Achieving target road conditions remains out of reach for local authority highway engineers. If local authorities had sufficient funds to maintain the local road network to targets conditions there could be:
  • an additional 14,400 miles of local roads in a good state of repair and;
  • 2,000 fewer miles in need of urgent repair.
  • The number of potholes filled in the last year is more than 1.7 million – equivalent to one being filled every 19 seconds
  • The average frequency of road surfacing is now once every 68 years and the bill to fix the backlog of maintenance work on our local roads in England and Wales remains in excess of £10 billion.