£203M backlog of road repairs in the Dorset Council area
Transport bosses in Dorset are vowing to be more proactive when it comes to fixing roads
Dorset's highways portfolio holder Ray Bryan has pledged to never return to the days of ‘salami slicing’ highways budgets.
Cllr Bryan says under previous county council administrations the roads had become an easy target when savings needed to be made – but the policy had resulted in greater spending overall and staff constantly playing catch up.
The current estimate for the backlog of road repairs in the Dorset Council area runs to £203million and £19.5million for footpaths.
Cllr Bryan’s comments came during a discussion on a new highways management policy which seeks to be more reactive, taking action before problems arise.
Cllr Bryan claimed that, compared with neighbouring council areas, Dorset’s main routes were in an overall good condition – although he admitted he would like to spend more of smaller roads.
If the council’s new policy meets the approval of the Department of Transport it will guarantee £2m of incentivised funding to be added to a proposed five-year annual commitment of £6.7m of council money to top up highway maintenance work.
The council’s place and resources overview committee was told that the county’s roads and pavements were probably the biggest asset the council has, valued at £6.4billion – and also the most likely subject to generate complaints from council taxpayers when holes and cracks started to appear.
“People underestimate the hard work which goes into maintaining highways. We need to concentrate on the main routes which means the smaller roads are sometimes facing challenges which we will deal with in time,” said Cllr Bryan.
He told the committee that work was underway on plans to improve verge cutting, drainage and gully emptying and on what he described a preventative maintenance.
In 2021-22 Dorset Council invested an additional £6.3m into highway maintenance, including footpaths, drainage and signs, to counter a £4m reduction in Government maintenance funding. The annual maintenance budget runs to over £20m.
Fact file on Dorset's roads
Dorset has 3,795km of road it is responsible for – 368km of A roads, 393 B roads, 1110 C roads and 1933 D class roads.
Of these 7.6km of A roads are considered to be in very poor condition and another 35.6 km in poor condition with 247.7 km of unclassified road logged as very poor and 342.6km as poor.
All classes of roads in the county, with the exception of B roads, were considered to have less investment than needed to maintain their condition. To improve the condition of all classes of roads in the county would require increased investment of around £21m a year over a ten year period.
The estimated backlog of maintenance in the rural county has been put at £203m based on a hypothetical reinstating of all damaged sections overnight to they are all in a good condition.
The county’s footpath network amounts to 2,640km with less than 3 per cent of the total said to be structurally or functionally impaired and 44.6 per cent free from defects; the remaining percentages are classed at either showing signs of wear and tear, or in mid-life.
The current backlog of footway maintenance has been put at £19.5million.