Glasgow City Council needs £20 million more to keep the city’s roads and pavements in their current state.
An investment options report shows a council spend of £10m a year on the roads but that it needs to spend £30m for the level of maintaining the current condition, the Glasgow Times reports.
George Gillespie, Executive Director of Neighbourhoods, Regeneration and Sustainability, outlined in a report to councillors the state of funding in the city.
He said: “It can be seen that current investment falls short of the estimated level required to maintain existing condition, although any reduction in condition is managed.
“Although investment is less than estimated to keep all assets at current condition, Officers continue to investigate new and more efficient ways to ensure that all assets remain serviceable and represent a safe and useable condition and ensure that existing funding enables this. This is true for each of the asset groups.”
The report said all councils have seen a deterioration in the state of roads and that Glasgow’s carriageway condition has deteriorated for the first time since 2013. It says 70.5% of carriageways are now in acceptable condition compared to Scottish average of 64.2%. More than eight out of ten pavements are said to be in good condition.
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council, said: “Our approach to road maintenance helps to ensure the city’s road network is safe to use and fit for purpose.
“We have a rolling maintenance programme that prioritises rapid repairs for the most dangerous faults but also seeks to ensure that any repairs are durable and completed at the first time of asking. We also undertake on-going work to create models that help us understand the investment required for the city’s network and these will look at worst case scenarios where there is significant deterioration in road condition.
“However, the on-going programme of work helps to sustain the roads network and ensure its fundamental integrity remains intact. Investment in the network will fluctuate on a yearly basis and the extent to which repairs are required in any year is significantly determined by environmental factors such as frost, snow and rain.
“It must be stressed that our repair programme was badly affected during the first covid lockdown when the basic government advice was for people, including many workers, to remain at home. Our roads maintenance teams and various contractors are working hard to catch-up on the time lost to the impact of covid restrictions.”
