Stop the Rot: Lib Dems Slams Tory Plan to Let Roads Detoriate (South East Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats)

South East Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats <info@secambslibdems.org.uk>

Stop the Rot: Lib Dems Slams Tory Plan to Let Roads Detoriate

March 9, 2011 6:29 PM

Cllr Kilian Bourke is concerned about Tories not giving Cambridgeshire Roads the investment they need

Drastic Tory spending cuts will lead to a catalogue of deterioration on the county's roads, an impact assessment has revealed.

Over a 10 year period the neglect could lead to three times the number of roads - and 43 per cent of all unclassified roads - being urgently in need of repair.

Without investment, taxpayers will be forking out for mounting driver insurance claims and soaring repair bills.

Worried Liberal Democrats have criticised the Tory-run Cambridgeshire County Council for failing to invest in the county's road network and called for a highways maintenance review to establish the true cost of the continuing neglect.

Lib Dem transport spokesman, Kilian Bourke said: "If the Tories maintain the current level of funding three times as many of our roads will be urgently in need of repair in 2021. Almost half of all unclassified roads will be in an advanced state of deterioration."

"Financially, the implications are disastrous. The cost of pothole repairs and insurance claims will spiral as our roads degrade. Nor is this an isolated issue; eventually this will start to drain money from other council areas, including Young Persons' Services and Adult Care."

"The county council urgently needs to conduct a highways maintenance review to look at the true cost of neglecting our roads."

An impact assessment of the Tory budget reveals that the 10 per cent reduction in medium and long-term road work will have disastrous consequences for the county's roads.

The document states: "Scenario planning suggests that the condition of carriageways will deteriorate as follows over the next 10 years based on this budget reduction percentage of network at intervention level:

A roads: 3.4 per cent [urgently in need of repair] to 10.4 per cent;
B roads: 6.2 per cent to 18.9 per cent;
C roads: 6.7 per cent to 20.6 per cent;
Unclassified roads: 20.2 per cent to 43.4 per cent."

Worcestershire County Council undertook the kind of review the Lib Dems are calling for and found that preventative investment saved significant costs in pothole repairs and insurance claims. It subsequently pumped an extra £15 million into roads to transform the network.

The Liberal Democrats' alternative budget proposed to invest an additional £10 million on roads over five years, but the Conservatives rejected it.