More than £14 billion needed to repair local roads in England and Wales

UK |

Despite the best efforts of local authority highway engineers, carriageway conditions in England and Wales have continued to decline over the last year, with the equivalent of 22,600 miles of road now likely to require maintenance in the next 12 months. Long term underfunding means that the cost to fix the backlog of local roads in need of repair has reached a record £14.02 billion, reports this year’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey.

Published by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), a partnership between Eurobitume UK and the Mineral Products Association, the 28th ALARM report highlights the scale of the worsening issue faced by highway engineers. The funding gap between what local authorities received and what they said they would have needed to keep roads to their own target conditions, and prevent further decline, is now £1.30 billion – a record jump of more than 20% on last year’s figure.

The 28th ALARM survey also reveals that despite a small increase in average highway maintenance budgets, it would take 11 years to catch up on the reported backlog of carriageway repairs and cost £ 14.02 billion – equivalent to £68,000 for every mile of local road in England and Wales. AIA Chair Rick Green said: “Insufficient investment in local road maintenance only leads to worsening conditions, a rising bill to fix the problem and more road user complaints.”

The AIA’s ALARM 2023 report can be downloaded here.

Back