Argyll roads need £100m to upgrade
Nearly £3 million worth of road maintenance work is earmarked for Oban, Lorn and the Isles over the next year, a report has revealed.
But the same document reveals Argyll and Bute Council has £100m backlog of maintenance in its road network.
The council is planning to spend £150,000 each on repairs to roads at Blaran and South Shian, as well as £120,000 at Loch Avich Narrachan. Works at North Shian, Bridge of Orchy and Kilninver are also earmarked to receive substantial funding. The plans are part of the authority’s roads capital programme for roadworks across Argyll and Bute, which has funding totalling £8m for the entire area.
A report on the programme was discussed by councillors at a virtual meeting of the council’s environment, development and infrastructure committee on Thursday March 3.
Executive director Kirsty Flanagan said in the document the plans are ‘working drafts’.
She said: ‘This council has approximately £100m of backlog maintenance in the road network. This means that over £100m would need to be invested to bring the road network up to an A1 standard.
‘Clearly in the current financial time we are not going to see the level of investment required to bring the road network up to an A1 condition.
‘However, over the last decade there has been a carefully applied strategy of delivering revenue and capital funding collectively and delivering a series of works designed to minimise reactive work, carry out right first time repairs wherever possible and to deliver surfacing techniques and specifications which maximise the amount of repairs and resurfacing which is delivered.
‘As with almost all council services there is insufficient funding available to treat all the sections of road that we’d like to do, the focus being on treating sections where we can maximise the financial return and in so doing reduce the amount of reactive repairs.
‘Unfortunately, the available funding means almost all roads authorities, including Argyll and Bute, are unable to treat every section of road they would like to do.’
Ms Flanagan added: ‘Surface dressing schemes are selected on the basis that either the skid resistance of the road surface is poor, or the road surface requires sealing before it fails.
‘As in previous years, the roads reconstruction programme will be delivered by a mixed economy model with the council’s in-house team delivering carriageway reconstruction and patching works.
‘The surface dressing element of the programme will be delivered by an external contractor. This enables the maximum surface area to be covered which will help to seal carriageway cracks, prevent the ingress of water and reduce the amount of reactive maintenance for potholes.’