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One pound spent on local road maintenance leads to a return of up to £5, or maybe even more, when all socioeconomic benefits are taken into consideration.
This was one of the facts highlighted in an evidence review for the Department of Transport by consultancy AtkinsRéalis, released on 26 September 2024. Commissioned before the Labour Government came into power, Economic appraisal for investing in local highways maintenance aims to inform the next Government Spending Review.
The report reminds us that the 175,000 miles of local road networks account for 92% of the total length of highways in England. With virtually every journey beginning and ending on local roads, they provide access to goods and services, enable people to travel to work, connect communities and contribute to how people feel about their neighbourhoods.
The review lists over 35 potential benefits of well-managed highway infrastructure grouping them under the following headings: economic, health, environment and sustainability, safety and security, resilience and climate change adaptation. For instance, it notes that well planned and maintained city centres can lead to an uplift in retail takings of up to 40% and that four out of 10 people are influenced on whether they go out by the state of the roads.
It isn’t just motorists who benefit from a well-maintained local roads network. Well maintained roads, footpaths and cycle ways encourage active travel, by foot or on bikes, and mean that older people are more likely to go out and to be able to remain living in their own homes.
The benefits of fixing potholes are highlighted under the safety and security heading. The report observes that this would lead to fewer deaths and injuries for cyclists due to pothole-related accidents, fewer call-outs for breakdown services and repair costs for motorists – as well as the economic benefit of fewer claims pay outs for local authorities.
Maintaining roads in a steady state can lead to significant carbon savings, says the report, and the use of recycled materials and circular economy approaches provides environmental benefits. Here, we would note that this is a benefit recognised by many councils in choosing Thermal Road Repairs’ low carbon pothole fixing technology, which reuses existing failed asphalt to provide a permanent repair.
Unanswered questions
The reviewers struggled to work out how much money is actually being spent on local road maintenance, as councils do not have to formally report on this. They note that funding for highways comes from multiple funding streams and are not ringfenced within local authorities, with councils sometimes forced to divert money to spending on services such as social care.
One significant fact that the review highlights is that maintenance costs have increased by an average of 20% over the past five years. Councils credited the rise to a number of factors including increases in materials costs, higher labour costs and the drive to cut carbon which can sometimes mean the use of more expensive lower carbon materials.
The report also looked at various means that are used to assess value for money (VfM) and cost benefit ratios (CBRs). It concluded that there isn’t a tool which takes all the potential benefits into account.
Among the recommendations of the review is the creation of a digital portal for collecting data on road maintenance spending and new guidance on how all the potential benefits of road maintenance can be monetised. The review also suggests introducing a way to incentivise councils to spend new or additional highways maintenance funding for the use it was intended.
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Thermal Road Repairs: Decarbonising the asphalt repair industry
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