Highland Council Allocates Extra £1.5m To Road Repairs

18th July 2018

Works are to begin on an additional £1.5M worth of repair schemes on Highland Council roads this summer.

Cllr Alister Mackinnon, Highland Council's Budget Leader said: "At the Council's meeting in March, Members agreed a revised 5 year Capital Plan and agreed to prioritise roads maintenance if there was any underspend in the Council's capital programme for 2018/19.

"A close review and reassessment of the Council's Capital Budget showed that there was an underspend in resources required for ICT investment based on latest prices and operational requirements. I am very pleased that we have been able to act swiftly to redirect these funds into much needed repairs of Highland roads."

Cllr Allan Henderson, Chair of the Council's Environment, Development and Infrastructure Committee added: "We are very pleased that the Council’s priorities for roads can be met by taking up this opportunity to repair our severely deteriorated network which was heavily damaged by the long winter. We have continually been managing an overspend on roads since last winter and the continued demands on patching and pothole filling will be helped immensely by this additional funding."

A total £1,450,000 funds are being allocated across the region’s area roads networks according to the council’s road distribution formula and road condition index. A small allocation of £50,000 will also be used to upgrade the Winter Ice Alert systems that the Council uses to monitor winter road conditions for gritting.

An Audit Scotland report in August 2016 set out the problems - http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2016/nr_160804_maintaining_roads.pdf

A follow up to address the Audit Scotland report was published in January 2018 - https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/41505/sag-response-to-audit-scotland-jan-2017.pdf

The long and short of all the words is that Scottish Roads will continue to get worse due to lack of funding. £1.5 million for Highland roads (The biggest road network of any Scottish council is in Highland) is helpful but is still a drop in the ocean compared to the backlog of repairs needed.