One of the Council Administration's priorities over the months ahead will be to come up with a long-term investment strategy for our roads.
Between financial years 2007/08 and 2010/11 over £7.1m was invested in surfacing and repairs to the Council’s roads and footways. A further £1m has been approved for the current financial year, 2011/12. Despite this, the backlog of repairs is increasing, not helped by the recent severe winters.
While I make no apology for putting our schools and leisure facilities first, the time has come to give a higher priority to our roads. That is why I will be proposing at the Policy & Resources Committee on 20 September that we allocate an additional £1m from reserves for road and footway repairs over the next 6-9 months.
At the same meeting I will be proposing that officers look at how we can fund increased investment in our roads in the years ahead to eradicate the maintenance backlog and bring them up to a good state of repair. I am under no illusion however that this will be easy given the real terms funding cuts we are facing from the Scottish Government.
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