Glasgow's pothole bill revealed
More than £43 million has been spent repairing roads and preventing potholes in just three financial years by Glasgow City Council.
A freedom of information request (FOI) submitted to the local authority has revealed that millions of pounds of additional funding has been allocated to road repairs and large scale resurfacing work.
The money spent – £15.6 million in 2016/17, £13.2 million in 2017/18 and £14.5 million in 2018/19 has also been used to prevent further deterioration and fixing an “unquantifiable” number of potholes. Figures for 2019/2020 are not yet available.
The local authority has spent more than £3.6 million repairing potholes from financial year 2016/17 to 2018/19 and up until December 14, 2019.
A council spokesman said: “The amount spent on road maintenance in any one year is linked to the road conditions at that time, but in recent years the annual budget has remained generally steady from year to year.
“The condition of Glasgow’s road network has improved in the past five years with the city ranked fifth best for road condition out of all 32 Scottish local authorities.
“Along with the volume of heavy traffic in the city, winter can be a particularly challenging time for road conditions with wet and cold weather always likely to cause problems.”
The FOI stated that £1.03 million was spent on the problem in 2016/17, with a further £1.05 million and £944, 862 in 2017/18 and 2018/19 respectively. By December 14 just £658,288 had been spent to address the issue.
A separate FOI states that between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2019 a total of 27,615 potholes were reported to the council with 22,514 repairs carried out up until November 2019 when the council’s new road repair scheme came into play.
The work was completed either within two hours, one day or five days depending on the risk they posed.
Since the new project, which focusses on permanent repairs rather than patching, 407 restorations out of 2604 complaints have been carried out costing the taxpayer £261,033.
The spokesman added: “We have recently introduced a new, risk-based approach to road repairs which will help us target our resources most effectively.
“The new policy will help to minimise money spent on often ineffective temporary patches and help divert more resources to getting repairs right first time around.
“The policy does mean that it can take longer for repairs to be completed, but it will ultimately lead to overall improvements in the city’s road network.”
An angry traveller who hit a pothole on South Street near Glasgow Harbour said he would be shocked if more drivers hadn’t experienced a problem with the city’s roads.
Fraser Inglis (36) said: “I was driving at slow speed on Sunday at 6pm, when I hit an almighty dip and felt a smack across the front of the car – the type that makes you grit your teeth in fear and loathing.
“No sooner had I progressed onto the motorway I started to feel one side heavier than the other. I went to a Glasgow garage and found one tyre pancaked and the other nearly flat.
“Hours of waiting and hundreds spent on a Sunday night on a journey that should have taken three hours.”
The council has been asked for comment on this incident.