We can’t allow road repairs to stall

Local authorities need a little more help when it comes to righting the terrible state of the highways

The revelation that independent transport experts have deemed it impossible to repair all of Scotland’s roads at current funding levels is a nightmare for motorists.

A headline backlog figure of £ 1.67 billion to repair existing damage means we’re on the road to nowhere in terms of removing significant defects on our highways as a result of funding cuts.

The response from a body as notable as the Society of Chief Transportation Officers in Scotland ( SCOTS) comes on the back of a damning report by Confused. com which revealed that Scotland’s roads have the highest number of potholes in the UK with 154,310 reported to councils last year – around 16,000 more than the next worst- hit area the south- west of England.

This equates to a combined depth of nearly four miles.

With councils facing a financial black hole to the tune of £ 500 million in two years’ time unless they make more cuts, the situation is set to deteriorate sharply. What this means for road users is not only damage to their vehicles but an increased risk of accidents. No matter how important our public infrastructure in the form of the rail network, buses and trams is, we are a nation of proud car owners who rely on our vehicles to go about our daily business.

The fact that our roads make us a laughing stock to the rest of the UK – with Edinburgh being a prime pockmarked example – is not acceptable. Neither is throwing good money down the drain with the sticking plaster approach of filling in the largest potholes, or simply placing a large traffic cone over them in the hope they go away.

This piecemeal approach to road maintenance has dug us into an even bigger hole. One that the transport experts are now saying we can’t get out of. The last set of figures available showed that Scottish councils paid out £ 2.7m to motorists whose vehicles had been damaged by potholes between 2009 and 2014. But this amount is on the increase with UK motorists receiving £ 3.1m from vehicle damage linked to poor road surfaces last year.

Clearly, money can be found for flagship projects like the new Queensferry Crossing and the dualling of the A9 but these will flounder if the local road networks required to access them are falling apart.

In this respect our local authorities need more help and support.