North roads improve by just 0.2 per cent as Highland Council admits deterioration is a 'long term trend'
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Highland roads have barely improved at all since last year with well over a third of all routes now needing attention according to the Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey.
That equates to a backlog of almost £200 million worth of road works while the so-called steady state – repairing enough roads so they get no better or worse – is valued at £25 million, though some believe the true figure to be much higher.
After being criticised for secrecy, Highland Council finally revealed the survey results as part of the papers relating to the environment and infrastructure committee this week.
They show that despite the council’s relative ranking improving from 26th to 25th out of 32 compared with other local authorities the road condition index (RCI) shows that 36.5 per cent of roads need maintenance work.
Elizabeth Maciver, Principal Engineer outlined how far the roads had fallen into disrepair going back to 2011, saying: “Comparing our results over the last 11 years shows a significant deterioration in our RCI, but there has been an improvement from the 2021 result.
“In 2011 we had an RCI of 29.3 per cent and were ranked 9th best Council. In 2022 our RCI was 36.5 per cent and our ranking is 25th, (noting an improvement from 26th in 2021).
She added: “During this period, the overall Scottish RCI has improved from 36.1 per cent to 33.6 per cent” – or less than half of one per cent while the improvement on Highland roads was even slighter at just 0.2 per cent.
In all 43 per cent of the Highlands’ 2910 kilometres of roads are assessed which equals 100 per cent of A class carriageways and 50 per cent of B and C class roads.
For A roads the direction of travel is changed on alternate years and with B and C roads the remaining 50 per cent is surveyed on the second year so all routes are covered over a two year cycle
The Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS) commissioned the current SRMCS contractor to run a financial model quantifying the backlog of road maintenance on the Scottish Local Authority network.
That would allow “a comparative budgetary valuation to be calculated which can be monitored on an on-going basis” – in other words it shows what the cost would be if the council was able to repair all roads.
It would also show the “steady state” figure which at the moment is £25.1 million while the backlog figure calculated in 2019 for the Highlands was £194.83 million.
