Local Conservatives today highlighted new research showing a growing crisis in Britain’s local roads. Across the country, for yet another year, the Institute of Civil Engineers has found that the quality of local roads is deteriorating and the maintenance backlog growing. Four of our five local authorities were dissatisfied with the Government’s record on transport.

Peter Forrest, Conservative GLA Candidate for Enfield-Haringey, remarked:

"We already knew from soaring council tax bills that local services are being squeezed thanks to the Government fiddling the system of local finance. Our schools and social services are suffering a crisis in funding, and it is only natural that Councils are trying to protect those frontline services by 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'.

But the Government’s fiddled funding also means that works on essential local infrastructure, like maintaining the condition of our roads, are losing out. Taxes are going through the roof, but we are not seeing the improvements in public services that we all deserve".

Notes to Editors

A survey by the Institute of Civil Engineers, published on 28 August 2003, based on questionnaires sent to all 203 local highway authorities in Great Britain, found that:

· 72 per cent of local authorities reported a deterioration over the past year in local roads, footpaths and cycleways.

· the road maintenance backlog has increase by 12 per cent to an estimated £8.3 billion, equivalent to £150 per resident in the country.

· four of out 5 authorities "report clear dissatisfaction with the current government’s record on transport"

· "local authorities are not spending their full budget allocation on maintaining the network because of increasing demands for expenditure in other sectors".

By contrast, the Government has a target in its 10 year transport plan, published in 2000, to halt the deterioration in local roads by 2004 and eliminate the maintenance backlog by 2010, which this report indicates it will not meet. (Source: ICE, Local Transport and Public Realm Survey 2003, 28 August 2003).

http://www.ice.org.uk/rtfpdf/ICE_LTS_PR_280803.pdf

http://www.ice.org.uk/rtfpdf/ICE_Local_Transport_Survey.pdf

In addition, a report published on 3 September found that "too often transport in rural Britain is not working and is letting people down… public transport and opportunities for walking and cycling are largely poor and disjointed… people see little alternative to owning a car" (Countryside Agency, Transport 2000 and the Citizens Advice Bureau, Rural Transport Futures, 3 September 2003).

http://www.transport2000.org.uk/news/maintainNewsArticles.asp?NewsArticleID=133

ENDS