Cllr Richard Butler, Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport at West Northamptonshire Council, has explained the authority’s approach to infrastructure improvements in a first-person on article on the Council website.
“When residents contact us about the condition of their local roads, the conversation often begins and ends with potholes. That’s understandable, potholes are visible, frustrating and can present a risk to road users,” he said.
“But if we are serious about improving our roads for the long term, we need to move from a pothole culture to a prevention culture. We’re placing a strong focus on planned, preventative maintenance across our highway network. By carrying out repairs at the right time, we can extend the life of roads, reduce the likelihood of more serious defects developing and make better use of the funding available to us.
“Put simply,” he continued, “it’s far more effective to preserve a road in reasonable condition than to wait until it has failed and requires much more extensive work.”
He went on to say that like all councils across the country, West Northamptonshire have to make difficult decisions about how we prioritise the resources available to us.
“Our focus must always be on addressing safety-critical issues and maintaining the routes that carry the highest volumes of traffic, including key roads that keep communities, businesses and public services connected.
“This means there will still be roads that residents feel are in poor condition or uncomfortable to drive on. In some cases, roads might look worn or unsightly but they just aren’t as much of a priority as others we need to fix. This is particularly true on some lower-use and unclassified roads, where we must carefully balance need, risk and available funding across the wider network.
“The wider challenge is one faced not just here, but across the country. Highway maintenance has been chronically underfunded for many years, resulting in a backlog of repairs that has built up over time. To bring every road across our network up to the standard that residents would ideally like to see would require investment measured not in millions but in hundreds of millions of pounds – around £300 million by current estimates.”
Concluding with a reference to preventative maintenance, Cllr Butler added:
“It may not always be as visible as filling a pothole, but preventing roads from failing in the first place is ultimately the most effective way to deliver the road network residents deserve.”
(Picture: West Northamptonshire Council)
