MPs find state of England's local roads is 'national embarrassment'

The Department for Transport (DfT) is failing in its responsibility to care for local roads such that their condition is now a “national embarrassment”.

That's according to a damning new report published by the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee – the group of MPs responsible for overseeing the value for money and services provided by government programmes.

Its inquiry found that “the state of England’s local roads is declining” yet “the DfT neither knows exactly how authorities spend its funding, as it is not ring-fenced, nor what it wants to achieve with it”. 

Among the issues identified in the report are a failure to take policy and the use of taxpayer funds “sufficiently seriously” when looking at the 183,000 miles of local roads across England – 98% of the total network.

It added that the DfT has insufficient knowledge of the condition of the local road network and that its approach to funding their maintenance is too focused on short-term repairs.

The report comes after the National Audit Office (NAO) last year reported that the government “does not know” whether £1.6 billion of taxpayer money is actually making a difference to the state of English roads.

The NAO said the DfT does not have a good enough understanding of the condition of local roads, nor does it allocate funding to local authorities “as effectively as possible”.

The Public Accounts Committee's chairman and Conservative MP for the North Cotswolds, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said: “The declining state of England’s local roads is a national embarrassment.

“As well as harming the prospects for our economy and communities’ own social wellbeing, highways riddled with potholes pose an increasing safety threat to road users. 

“Alarmingly, however, not only is the state of our local roads on the downslope, [but also] our inquiry shows government are having to find out about these issues from industry bodies and road users themselves, due to their own patchy data.”

In turn, the Committee has made nine key recommendations.

On the failure to take the condition of local roads seriously, it said the DfT should “clearly set out its roles and responsibilities”, because it "has not taken enough responsibility, given the declining conditions of local roads across England”. 

On the DfT’s insufficient knowledge of the condition of roads, it suggested the DfT should work with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government to better its odds of achieving a reliable dataset.

The DfT said it doesn't ask local authorities for information such as the condition of walkways and cycle paths so as not to create a “large burden of work”.

However, the Committee was “unconvinced” by whether doing so would actually create further work, as local authorities may already have such data.

It added that the DfT should revise funding to ensure it more accurately reflects the wear and tear of routes according to their usage, as well as make clearer where the funding is derived from.

The other recommendations include revising the DfT’s recommended practices for local authorities in consideration of future developments, such as the introduction of heavier electric lorries and autonomous vehicles; and reviewing how funding is spent.

Edmund King, president of The AA, commented: “The poor state of our roads is the number-one transport concern for 96% of drivers. This report reinforces many things The AA has been calling for. 

“We have highlighted the need for longer-term, ring-fenced investment using innovation and technology to permanently repair local roads rather than the short-term patchwork approach.

“The Committee is right to highlight the inconsistency of councils inspecting and repairing the highway. Whilst funding shouldn’t just be based on length of roads, equally we need to ensure that extra funding isn’t just given to failing highway authorities who continue to get it wrong.”