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AIA calls for significant boost to local roads’ budgets to improve conditions
The Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) is calling for an additional £1.5 billion per year to be reallocated from existing fuel duty and spent on local road maintenance[1].
The funds, which, the AIA says, will need to be made available for the next decade, would allow council highways teams to halt the on-going decline of the network and bring local roads up to target conditions.
“Our local roads have been underfunded for many years and the result is that more than 24,000 miles of the network is classed as poor and may need to be repaired in the next 12 months,” said Rick Green, Chairman of the AIA.
“There have been calls for an additional 2p per litre from existing fuel duty to be reinvested in local road maintenance, which would generate an additional £1 billion per year, but we don’t think this goes far enough.
“In order to tackle the scale of the problem we believe that 3p per litre from fuel duty needs to be redirected. This would allow the annual £555.7 million shortfall in England and Wales reported in our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey to be addressed AND provide £1 billion to tackle the legacy of underfunding.
“Sustained over 10 years, this will allow the local road network to be brought back to a standard fit for the 21st century, where it can effectively support communities and drive
economic growth; a standard which could then be effectively maintained going forward.”
The AIA’s call for sustained additional funding is detailed in its submission to the Transport Select Committee’s inquiry into local roads funding and governance and follows recent meetings the AIA has had with policy makers and politicians.
For more information please contact:
Samantha Stagg or Madeleine Hardman, AIA press and information office:
T: +44 (0)207 222 0136
Notes to editors
- The AIA is a partnership between the Mineral Products Association (MPA) and Eurobitume UK. It aims to increase awareness of the asphalt industry and promote the uses and benefits of asphalt to specifiers, policy makers and the general public.
- Each year the AIA commissions the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey to provide a detail picture of local road funding and maintenance issues. Now in its 23rd year, the ALARM survey is recognised as providing robust and reliable data on these issues.
- The AIA’s calls for an additional £1.5 billion per annum for local roads would bring annual local road network spending to £2.6 billion – the equivalent of @£12,000 per mile of local road – still a long way behind funding levels for the SRN.
- ALARM reports that local authorities need £9.3 billion to bring the network up to scratch. However, improving the network cannot be carried out on a straight-line curve – all work cannot be carried out at the same time and parts of the network will continue to deteriorate in the meantime. This is why a sustained 10-year period of additional investment is needed.
- The RAC Foundation stated in 2012 that of a total of £30.7 billion raised from direct motoring taxation (fuel duty and vehicle excise duty (VED) only 14% was spent on the local road network. This compares to 27% in 2007 and around 50% in the 1970s.
[1] For local roads in England (including London) and Wales.