Highways on road to ruin after cuts says Hull chief

A report on Hull’s transport assets reveals it would cost more than £6.6m to prevent further deterioration of the city’s roads, yet with a road maintenance budget of less than half that amount the city council admits it has little option but to oversee their decline.

The cash-strapped authority has to save £48m over the next two years, leaving the prospect of finding the £60m needed to restore the road network to an “as new” condition as a pipe dream.

Councillor Martin Mancey, portfolio holder for Energy City, with responsibility for strategic highways and transport, said: “The under-funding of roads is a national problem.

“We in Hull have been aware of the problem for a number of years and indeed the Labour administration in the late 1990s allocated £30m from the initial KC sale (of council shares) for road and streetlighting maintenance, and unfortunately this programme was cancelled by Lib Dem group in 2002.

“In the current era of austerity, where the council is facing further Government funding cuts over the next two years of £48m, there are many pressures in council budgets.

“However, I will continue to press for further funding for highway maintenance, both within the council and from Government.”

He added: “We have over the past two-and-a-half years reviewed the approach to highway maintenance to place a greater emphasis on planned preventative maintenance.

“This approach has been fully endorsed by the industry and the Audit Commission.

“However, in common with most other councils we can only continue to maximise the effectiveness of the limited resources available, whilst inevitably managing the overall decline of the highway network as a result of the failure of central Government to provide adequate funding.”

A report on the council’s Transport Asset Management Plan, which will go before an infrastructure scrutiny committee next week, warns that the number of key assets – such as roads, bridges, lighting, and drainage – are growing because of new developments, but budgets are not increasing in tandem and in some cases are “non-existent”.

The effect of material decline will be most noticeable on the “unclassified” road network, the report says, which accounts for the majority (84 per cent) of Hull’s roads.

In addition to the roads a “large proportion” of the city’s footpaths are in “poor condition”, with nearly half requiring maintenance in the next two years.

The overall shortfall and backlog of repairs stands at £60m and is increasing year on year.

The city’s transport assets include more than 462 miles of “adopted” highway, 36,000 street lights, 2,500 illuminated signs, more than 24 miles of public rights of way, and more than 500 structures.

The report said the infrastructure provides a “vital contribution to the city’s economic, social, and recreational well being, and is required to meet the needs of users for many years to come.

“It is critical that these assets are safe, usable, and provide a reasonable level of service to the community”.

The council is also keenly aware of the importance placed on the quality of roads by residents.

The report highlights a 2013 poll which found that 43 per cent of UK adults named the condition of roads and pavements as their top priority, with street cleanliness third.

Both areas were of more importance than schools, health services, and crime.

The report says there is “increasing frustration” at the state of local roads, which make up almost 85 per cent of the network in Hull.

A recent example of the strain on the council’s roads budget came last week in a report on Anlaby Road flyover.

The Department for Transport has agreed to provide £1.8m of the £2.6m estimated cost of carrying out urgent repairs to the structure, which is nearly 50 years old and has suffered “severe ingress” from road salts, leaving the steel reinforcements exposed.

The report warned that failure to secure external funding could have led to 10 years of delays and disruption because the council could only afford to carry out the work “piecemeal”. If no action was taken there would be a risk of concrete falling from the flyover, which carries traffic over the main railway line into Hull.