Midcheshire Independent Issue 178

11 MAY 2025 Visit our website: www.independentnewspapers.co.uk A CHESHIRE highways chief is calling on the gov- ernment to fund a national investment programme to resurface the country’s pothole riddled roads. Mark Goldsmith, who chairs Cheshire East Coun- cil’s highways and transport committee, was responding to the Annual Local Author- ity Road Maintenance (ALARM) Survey Report and the fight to keep roads running for road users. He said: “It’s clear our roads have taken a ham- mering this winter. The prolonged icy weather has caused a huge number of pot- holes to appear very quickly. “To keep our roads safe, last month we treated almost 4,150 potholes and defects and we expect to respond to 60,000 this year. That com- pares to 37,000 last year. “However, this growing number just highlights how our roads are failing. Pothole repairs may keep roads safe, but they are only a short- term fix. “We need a long-term solu- tion and that means spending more money on resurfacing them. But this needs a level of investment that councils cannot afford, even though it would save money over the long-term. “For decades, successive governments have passed less than 4p in every £1 paid by motorists in road taxes onto councils to maintain them. It’s been far too lit- tle, for far too long and now it shows. “The scale of this national problem was identified in the latest Annual Local Authority Road Mainte- nance (ALARM) survey. It said there are almost £17bn worth of potholes across the UK. “This is more than 10 times the annual amount govern- ment gives local councils for road maintenance. Current levels of funding are just not enough. “The 2,100 miles of motor- way that the government maintains gets a similar level of funding as the 250,000 miles of local roads councils look after. “Too much tax has been diverted away from local roads, and it is unrealistic and unfair for council tax to be expected to replace it. “Therefore, the new A POTHOLE has been filled every three min- utes, every day, for 10 years in the North West but the region’s backlog of carriageway repairs is almost £2billion. The staggering figures, from this year’s Annual Local Authority Road Main- tenance (ALARM) survey report, spell more misery for road users. Nearly one in six miles of the local road network – equivalent to almost 3,600 miles in the region – is reported to have less than five years’ structural life remaining. Meanwhile, roads are only resurfaced, on average, once every 61 years in the North West. David Giles, chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), which commissioned the ALARM survey, said: “Over £20 billion has been spent on carriageway mainte- nance in England and Wales over the last decade. “However, due partly to the short-term nature of the allocation of funding, this has resulted in no quantifiable uplift in the condition and resilience of the network. “In fact, almost all (94 per cent) local authority highway teams reported that, in their opinion, there has been no improvement to their local network over the last year: a view no doubt shared by the majority of road users.” The ALARM survey reports local road funding and conditions in England and Wales based on infor- mation provided directly by those responsible for the maintenance of the network. This year’s survey, the 30th, received a record 78 per cent response rate from local authorities, including 83 per cent of those in the North West. Over the past three dec- ades ALARM has reported a repeated pattern of short- term cash injections in an effort to stem the accelerating SPECIAL REPORT Still going to pot! Misery continues for North West drivers Action call: David Giles The findings of ALARM 2025, which relate to the 2024/25 financial year, also show that in theNorthWest: • Local authorities would have needed an extra £120.2m last year to maintain their network to their own target condi- tions and prevent further deterioration. • £1.91bn is required, as a one-off, for local authorities in the region to bring the network up to their‘ideal’conditions. • 48 per cent of the network has less than 15 years’structural life remaining – almost 10,800miles. • 173,280 potholes have been filled at a cost of £12.5m. A sorry picture Call for national investment programme Road line: Councillor Mark Goldsmith government needs to urgently commit to funding a national investment programme to resurface our local roads.” decline in road conditions, followed by longer periods of cuts and underfunding. David Giles said: “There needs to be a complete change in mindset away from short-term to longer term funding commitments. “Local authorities do their best with the resources avail- able. Nevertheless, they have told us they need their budg- ets to more than double for the next five to 10 years if they are going to be able to address the backlog of repairs. “That is why we are calling on government, particularly now with a Comprehensive Spending Review ahead, to set a minimum five-year funding horizon and a sub- stantial, sustained increase in investment with budgets ring-fenced specifically for local roads maintenance. “Investing in local roads would allow authorities to plan and provide better value for money for taxpayers and deliver a more resilient net- work while helping kickstart the government’s economic growth plans.” RAC head of policy, Simon Williams, added: “Once again, these figures paint a bleak picture of the state of the nation’s roads and confirm what a majority of drivers have known for a long time – that in far too many parts of the country, road surfaces are simply not fit-for-purpose. “The lack of investment in our roads is a false econ- omy as it just leads to bigger repair costs in the future – something local authorities can ill-afford. In the mean- time, all road users continue to pay the price with uncom- fortable journeys, avoidable breakdowns and repair bills that they only incur because potholes are so bad.”