Carmarthenshire Council is increasingly having to repair roads after they deteriorate rather than carrying out preventative maintenance, with auditors warning the approach is not sustainable in the long term.
Audit Wales said the council’s real-terms spending on roads has fallen by 40% since 2008-09, while the estimated maintenance backlog has reached at least £77 million. The watchdog told a council committee that the authority’s increasingly reactive approach to highway maintenance risked further deterioration and higher costs in the future, says Nation Cymru.
Carmarthenshire has the second-largest and third-busiest road network of Wales’ 22 local authorities.
“This is significant because preventative maintenance is generally more cost-effective,” said Audit Wales’ Gareth Jones.
“There is a risk that road conditions might continue to deteriorate and costs might increase in future years.”
The report found the council was prioritising major routes – excluding trunk roads managed by the Welsh Government – while unclassified roads were receiving less attention.
Unclassified roads account for 47% of Carmarthenshire’s 3,541km highway network, with the number requiring urgent work continuing to rise.
The scale of the deterioration is reflected in the number of potholes reported across the network, which increased from 1,978 in 2020 to 11,014 in 2024 – a rise of 456%. The council’s director of corporate services, Chris Moore, said the highways budget had been significantly reduced in the years following 2008-09.
He told the committee that the impact of cutting roads spending had been considered less severe than reductions to services such as social care.
“It’s a very difficult choice for elected members but as a consequence now there is a bigger expenditure needed to try to bring the roads back up to scratch,” he said.
Audit Wales said the council had allocated £9.5 million to roads in 2025-26 and 2026-27.
That is £6.5 million less than the level of annual investment it estimates would be required simply to prevent the condition of the network from getting worse.
The report highlights the long-term consequences of moving away from preventative highway maintenance, with the authority now facing a growing backlog and increased pressure on its roads budget.
Audit Wales’ findings underline the wider challenge facing local highway authorities: delaying maintenance may reduce spending in the short term, but can leave councils facing significantly higher costs when roads eventually require more extensive repairs.
(Picture: Mapillary)
