LACK OF FUNDING FOR ROADS MAINTENANCE

THE Roads Service receives less than half the funds it requires to adequately maintain the roads network, Minister for Regional Development, Gregory Campbell, has said.

Mr Campbell was responding to the Public Accounts Committee report into Structural Maintenance of Roads which was launched on Tuesday.

He said the report convincingly backed up his Department’s longstanding case that proper resources were needed to maintain the surface and underlying structure of roads and footpaths.

The Minister said: "My Department has never disguised the under-investment in structural maintenance, nor the maintenance backlog that has resulted. In reality the structural maintenance allocation made available to Roads Service is only about half of that required to adequately maintain the public road network.

"We face a dilemma: on one hand the resources we are given are inadequate yet, on the other, we have a statutory responsibility to maintain roads in reasonable condition. The upshot is that on many of our roads we have had to use cheaper, shorter-term measures like patching and surface dressing to meet the statutory requirement and protect the public liability position.

While he acknowledged that resurfacing would be better value in the long run, Mr Campbell said this process was initially more expensive and so the limited funding has meant that resurfacing is largely confined to the motorways and trunk roads.

Despite the severe lack of funding, Mr Campbell said he welcomed the considerable reduction in the level of public liability claims from around £6 million in the mid-eighties to £2.9 million last year.

(MB)