Committee labels UK roads a national embarrassment
A new report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has labelled UK roads a national embarrassment and said the government does not have a long-term plan for fixing them.
It has further blamed the Department for Transport (DfT) for not taking its responsibilities and use of public money on local roads sufficiently seriously.
The DfT admitted to the committee that its data on the quality of UK roads is not good enough, and said that although it commits more than £1bn a year to local authorities to maintain roads it does not know how those funds are being invested.
PAC has also criticised the DfT for taking a short-term approach to repairing roads, with the DfT admitting this does not provide best value for money.
UK roads a national embarrassment
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, 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, 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.
“This Committee has long raised concerns around a failure across government departments to effectively fund and plan for the future, a theme that is certainly on show here, along with an overly tangled web of accountability. This Committee shares our constituents’ frustration at these issues, and hope our recommendations go some way to help the Government take better responsibility for them.”
Roads top driver grievances
Edmund King, AA president, added:
“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.
“It is also a concern that data in some areas is so poor that the condition of local roads is not fully understood. However, the new data standards will not be mandatory until April 2026. All road users deserve a much better service from our local road network.”
