MONEY WELL SPENT?
Nearly £500,000 shelled out on Stewart field Way
South Lanarkshire Council have spent almost £500,000 repaving Stewartfield Way despite plans to upgrade the road.
More than £4.2 million is being spent on repairing roads and pavements in East Kilbride and Avondale this year.
And that includes £470,000 spent on two phases to maintain Stewartfield Way.
Figures unveiled at the East Kilbride area committee last week revealed 43 road and footway maintenance projects due to be completed by April 2020.
East Kilbride East councillor Gladys Miller questioned if Stewartfield Way needed resurfacing given the consultation over a significant £62m overhaul.
Councillor Miller said: “That is a lot of money to spend of Stewartfield Way as there is a proposed change.”
Roads area manager Martin Muir explained the road met the council’s criteria for prioritising repairs, adding there was “no certainty” to whether the improvement project would go ahead.
He added: “If it does, it will still be a few years away. We couldn’t wait that long.”
Almost £4 million is being spent on resurfacing roads across the area while more than £215,000 is being used to fix footways.
The most expensive single project saw the A723 between Strathaven and Hamilton repaired for £442,000.
At the other end of the scale, just £10,000 was spent resurfacing Millburn Way, East Kilbride.
At the time of the progress report being written in September, 29 of the 43 projects had been completed, however, Mr Muir confirmed a further 10 were now finished.
With just 29 per cent of residents satisfied with the state of the area’s roads – the lowest satisfaction rate of any council service – it was argued investment was needed.
Mr Muir added: “The roads network is the council’s highest valued asset at £3 billion.
“Roads maintenance has been historically underfunded but that is something the council has looked to redress.
“Steady State funding of £11 million has been committed for the current year.”
Leader of the Labour group, Councillor Joe Fagan praised the work of the roads department after they had “substantially improved much of the network,” with fellow East Kilbride councillor, David Watson, agreeing.
As a result, South Lanarkshire now has the ninth best road network of all local authority areas in Scotland.
However, Councillor Graham Scott complained the criteria for determining which roads get prioritised for resurfacing could result in a “patchwork quilt effect”.