Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) report - RAC reaction

Reacting to the publication this morning of the Asphalt Industry Alliance's ALARM report on local roads investment, RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said:

“The results from this year’s survey chimes with our own breakdown data, which suggests the overall state of the UK’s roads is not getting any worse. But this is hardly positive – it remains the case that a driver today is still more than twice as likely to breakdown as a result of a pothole than in 2006, and potholes not only cause expensive damage to vehicles but are also a very real road safety danger for drivers, bikers and cyclists alike. And, surely it shouldn’t be the case in 2019 that a driver can switch from a major A-road to a minor road and see an immediate degradation in surface quality.

“Thankfully, more money appears to be getting through to councils to allow them to improve poor road surfaces, but it’s simply not enough. For years now we have been calling for the Government to recognise the importance of local roads and give authorities the certainty of long-term funding. Only this will allow councils to carry out effective reactive maintenance and plan preventative action to stop potholes appearing in the first place. We believe the best way to do this would be to ring-fence existing funds raised from fuel duty: just two pence per litre collected over five years would raise nearly £5bn, in addition to what is already allocated to councils, and would go some way towards clearing the backlog of potholes that currently plague many parts of the UK.”