PAC wrote in its ‘Maintaining strategic infrastructure: roads’ report, published today, that the two departments should “examine the cumulative impact of their combined funding decisions on local authorities’ road maintenance” and to “adjust their approach accordingly to support essential routine road maintenance activities.”
The joint action is necessary, the committee said, as local authorities’ revenue funding from central government has “reduced by almost a third over the four years of the 2010 Spending Review, and is set to fall a further 10% from 2015-16 to 2020-21.”
The committee also argued that uncertainty over funding adds substantial costs to the work of maintaining roads and called for greater funding stability.
The report criticises DfT’s “piecemeal and stop-go approach to funding for road maintenance in recent decades”, which “has made it difficult for highways authorities to deliver maintenance cost-effectively, with too much reactive work in response to flooding and other events and not enough focus on preventative work that is less expensive in the long-term.”
Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: “It seems ludicrous that in 2010 the department cut road maintenance budgets by £1.2bn over the four years from April 2011, but then it has intermittently given £1.1bn additional funding on nine separate occasions for various reasons, including in response to flooding or winter damage to the roads.
“The Department must see that prevention is better than cure. It costs £52 to fill in a pothole, or £70 in London, yet it costs over £30m to pay and process compensation claims from road users for damages arising from poor road conditions.”
The report also raises concerns over a “lack of information and understanding of road infrastructure” and calls on DfT to “work with local highway authorities to ensure that they all develop appropriate data and understanding of their road infrastructure.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “We are absolutely committed to tackling potholes on local roads, which is why we have increased funding by more than 27% in this parliamentary term compared with the last one - £10bn between 2010 and 2021. We encourage councils to undertake more planned preventative maintenance to be more efficient in how they tackle problems.
“We have committed to spending £24bn on our strategic road network up to 2021 – the biggest investment in our roads since the 1970s - and we are reforming roads funding so that it is stable and guaranteed. But we also make no apology for responding to unforeseen circumstances, such as the additional £180m we have provided to help councils deal with damage caused by severe weather.”