‘24 years to repair roads in Wales’

IT will take 24 years and more than half a billion pounds to get Wales’ roads up to scratch as the number of potholes being repaired falls.

In Wales, 131,479 potholes were filled in 2017-18, an average of one every four minutes, according to the latest results of a survey by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA).

The figures in the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (Alarm) survey shows a 7% decline from the 141,020 potholes filled in 2016-17.

In that time, Welsh councils filled an average of 5,976 potholes each, down from 6,410. The planned cost of filling a pothole was £61, with a reactive repair costing £60.

The survey also asked highways departments to estimate how much it would cost to bring their road networks up to scratch, assuming that they had the resources in place to make it practical to do so as a one-off project. Based on the responses, it was estimated councils in Wales would need £603.4m to clear the backlog.

Council highway departments reported that if adequate funding and resources were in place to get roads back into a reasonable condition, the estimated amount of time required to carry out such work would be around 24 years, up from nine.

The average budget shortfall, the difference between the money needed and that they are given per council in Wales was £3.1m.

According to the AIA, taking into account the lifespan of particular materials, the type of road and the level and nature of its traffic, the recommended frequency of road resurfacing is between 10 and 20 years – in Wales, the average time before a road is resurfaced is 71 years, up from 63 years a year before.

A Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) spokesman said: “The LGA is pressing the UK Government to reinvest 2 pence per litre of existing fuel duty into local road maintenance.”