Residents tell Falkirk Council they want roads maintained

A report to Falkirk Council’s scrutiny committee on Tuesday said maintaining 325 km of the district’s roads will take more than double the £3.5 million annual funding that is expected to be allocated in future budgets.

The report highlighted the difference that extra funding has made in recent years, with the network seeing “its best condition score in 17 years”.

But it stressed that without continuous investment of £7.7 million every year, the best the service can hope to do is “manage decline”.

Councillors were told that in officers’ view: “An annual £7.7 million capital investment programme (as opposed to the existing £3.5 million plan) is required solely to maintain the steady state and ensure the network does not deteriorate to a worse condition than the current level.”

The report made it clear that even with that level of funding “no improvement would be achieved”.

Director of Place Malcolm Binnie told the committee that he expected the information in the report to be part of councillors’ considerations when it came time to set the budget in February.

While the council is facing a shortfall in funding of £56 million over the next five years, he made a plea for roads to be considered a priority.

Mr Bennie said: “My service is doing absolutely everything it can to provide update and provide information so that elected members can take an informed decision when it sets that budget.

“This report is part of that journey in highlighting the shortfall and obviously it’s within the gift of elected members, when setting their budget in February, to decide whether to allocate additional funds or not to roads.

“We clearly believe there is an argument for additional funding to go to roads but obviously that needs to be considered as part of the overall mix of the budget decisions that councillors face.”

Roads manager David Maley pointed out extra funding would save money in the longer term.

Repairs to roads are much cheaper if they are done quickly, as only the top layer of road will have been damaged.

Repairs done quickly also make it less likely that the council will have to pay out compensation to people whose cars have been damaged by potholes.

Only doing ‘reactive repairs’ in response to reports of damage, rather than planned repairs, is also very expensive as the temporary repairs do not last.

Mr Bennie’s report highlights that in a recent council tax survey – which got more than 1300 responses – road maintenance was the most highly valued service.

The survey also showed that concerns around the condition of roads and pavements were frequently mentioned.

Extra funds have been allocated to roads in recent years and while this has made a big difference, the scale of the challenge means there’s much more to do.