By David Scott in Edinburgh
16 February 2011
Councils and transport bodies in Scotland have been warned they are storing up future problems after auditors found that the backlog of spending needed for roads repairs has soared to £2.25bn.
In a report published today, Audit Scotland said only 63% of roads were in an acceptable condition. The £2.25bn needed to remove all road defects compares with a backlog of £1.24bn in 2004.
Auditor general Bob Black said: ‘Members of the public are increasingly dissatisfied with the condition of our roads. The pattern of spending and scale of backlog means that the value of these public assets is not being sustained.
‘But by deferring expenditure on infrastructure, public bodies are storing up problems for the future and passing a greater burden on to generations to come.’
The disclosure of the scale of the maintenance backlog comes as unprecedented cuts are being made in public sector budgets. The impact of this winter’s severe conditions has yet to be determined.
According to Audit Scotland, a total of £654m was spent on road maintenance in Scotland in 2009/10 -– £162m on trunk road maintenance and £492m on council maintained roads.
While this represented a 5% increase in spending compared with 2004/05, road construction inflation was considerably higher than general inflation over this time.
This meant that in purchasing terms, councils spent 13% less and Transport Scotland spent 32% less on road maintenance in 2009/10 than they did in 2004/05.
The report said Transport Scotland, which is responsible for trunk roads such as motorways, estimated it would need to spend an additional £275m to get trunk roads into a ‘steady state’.
John Baillie, chair of the Accounts Commission, which audits council spending, said it was very disappointing to see the limited progress made since Audit Scotland last reported on the need to improve road maintenance.
He said: ‘A third of councils still need to develop road asset management plans, a fundamental requirement of good management.’
