Anger as roads go to pot

Now a third of highways need repairs

A THIRD of Scotland’s local roads are in urgent need of repair amid massive council cutbacks. A report by spending watchdogs yesterday warned that the network is in a worse state than a decade ago.

But with public finances in crisis, motorists have been warned to get used to driving on pothole-ridden roads as the cash may not be there to fix them.

The Accounts Commission report found that spending on road maintenance in Scotland fell 21 per cent last year to £400million.

It is estimated the total bill for bringing more than 12,000 miles of the network up to scratch has more than doubled in a decade to £2.25billion.

The study found maintenance spending had fallen by as much as 32 per cent in some areas. Only 66 per cent of unclassified roads, typically those in built-up areas, are in an acceptable condition.

But the report found that only a third of councils have detailed road maintenance action plans.

John Baillie, chairman of the Accounts Commission, said it was important that local authorities made better use of the resources they already have.

‘There is potential for better sharing of skills and resources, more effective planning at national and local level and more use of benchmarking to learn from best practice elsewhere,’ he added.

Councils paid out £102million in compensation to motorists for damage caused by potholes last year – three times more than in 2008.

Scots drivers have to deal with an average of 20.1 craters per neigh- bourhood, well above the UK average of 14.9, the AA said.

A Transport Scotland spokesman said: ‘The maintenance of local roads is a matter for local authorities who have received over £10.3billion in Scottish Government funding for 2013/14.’

But Stephen Hagan, spokesman for local authorities’ umbrella group Cosla, said: ‘Road condition has marginally i mproved but councils have spent 20 per cent less in achieving these outcomes in recent years, a tremendous achievement in times of tighter overall budgets.’