A recent report from the National Audit Office looks at the condition of our UK roads, the planned reductions in road maintenance budgets and the sorts of consequences these cuts could have on the country. The report also looks into the different types of systems and processes needed to achieve value for money on road maintenance up and down the country.

This report comes almost a year after the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) launched their own report calling for urgent action to stop further deterioration of local roads and spread awareness of the fundamental importance of the highway network.

This post, written by the team at C R Macdonald, looks at the key features of the National Audit Office report on maintaining strategic infrastructure on our UK roads:

Key Statistics:

  • The total value of England’s roads is estimated at £344bn
  • There are 187,000 miles of road networks in England
  • In 2012-2013 there was a total of £4bn spent maintaining England’s roads
  • There are 4,400 miles of carriageway and 9,000 bridges within the strategic network maintained by the Highways Agency
  • There are 152 local highway authorities who are responsible for maintaining the local road networks
  • Within the local road network there are 183,000 miles including 113,000 miles of streets and unclassified roads as well as 52,000 bridges.
  • £10.3bn is the total central government funding allocated to road maintenance for the period from April 2015 to March 2021. 

The National Audit Office’s report looks at whether the highways authorities have reduced road maintenance budgets as planned, how they have done so and what effect this has had on the networks.

Balance of Funding:

The most important thing the NOA found during their evidence gathering was that the overall budget for road maintenance has not decreased as rapidly as planned. The Spending Review 2010, originally announced a decrease of 19%, however with Governments often providing supplementary funding in the last quarter of the financial year, usually focussed on addressing traffic bottlenecks and winter damage, the actual reduction in the Agency’s budget was only 7%.

Capital funding for local authorities should have reduced by 15%, but it actually increased by 3%. However, revenue funding allocated for all local authority services has fallen by 33% rather than the planned 28%.

Practical Implications:

With the change in the mix of funding there are concerns that road maintenance may cost more in the long term as the money is being spent in different areas. For example the local highway authorities plan to spend more revenue on maintenance but as a consequence they will be carrying out less routine activities such as clearing gullies and inspections, tasks that are vital in the prevention of water seeping into road substructure.

Work Will Peak between September and March:

Due to a combination of funding announcements and planning cycles, actual funding is not agreed until the spring, meaning that the maintenance work does not begin until autumn / winter time, in colder conditions when materials are much more difficult to handle and daylight hours are shorter, meaning the work takes longer and is therefore more costly for the highway authorities.

Value for Money?

The report found that there are positive signs of innovation by highways authorities in direct response to funding pressures on road maintenance. The Department of Transport and Highways Agency understands the threat posed to value for money due to the uncertainty of funding and is in the process of setting up a Government company that will address the problems affecting the strategic road network, however until the funding for both local and central authorities is made more predictable, public value will still be lost to a certain extent.