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APRIL 2014


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Action is needed now


The results of the 19th Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey don’t make for good reading. The survey, which is commissioned by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), estimates that it will cost £12 billion to get the local road network in England and Wales back into a reasonable condition (read more on page 15).


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The government confi rmed an extra £200 million worth of funding to help councils repair potholes in its 2014 budget, but when you consider that more than two million potholes were fi lled in during 2013, this money will barely scratch the surface.


Of course most road surfaces are suffering from a lot more than just a scratch and this is the fundamental problem.


AIA chairman Alan Mackenzie points out that “money spent on repairing damage never goes as far as money invested in planned, preventative maintenance.”


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He adds: “It costs at least 20 times more per square metre to fi ll a pothole than it does to resurface a road.”


The vast majority of local authorities in England were affected by the winter deluge, although at the time the survey was conducted most were unable to estimate the cost of damage to their networks, with many roads still under water after an extremely wet winter.


This means that the true cost of putting things right could be much greater than the estimated £12bn.


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It’s not all bad news as a little while ago the government committed £10 billion of investment in road repairs between 2015-16 and 2020-21.


However, we’re still a year away from this money entering the system. The fi gures put forward by the AIA suggest that it is needed now.


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EDITORIAL BOARD


Alec Peachey Editor Highways Magazine


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Haydn Davies


Department for Transport’s HMEP programme manager


Dana Skelley


Director of asset management at Transport for London (TfL)


Arthur Hannah


President of the Institute of Asphalt Technology (IAT)


Nick Anderson


Marketing director for the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL)


Richard Hayes


President of the Institute of Highway Engineers (IHE)


Steve Kent


President of the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) and an HMEP advocate


Graham Edmond


Head of network maintenance for Transport Scotland


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