Bradford Council has boosted its road maintenance budget to £8.9m, but admitted it will not be enough to tackle an increasing backlog of work to bring the district’s roads up to scratch.
The authority said ‘harsh winter weather’ had caused roads across the district to deteriorate at a faster rate than it can keep up with and an increase in its roads budget from £6.5 million last year would only allow it to “maintain the condition” of the network.
Coun John Pennington, the Council’s Conservative group spokesman for roads, said it was fighting a losing battle and feared it would ‘never catch up’ on the backlog.
In December, it was announced Bradford would receive £1.58 million in extra Government funding for road maintenance over the next two years - almost a quarter of the authority’s then budget.
The extra cash announced by the Department for Transport was part of a £333m fund announced in the Chancellor's autumn statement for essential maintenance to renew, repair and extend the life of roads in England.
A Council spokesman said its roads maintenance budget for this year included some of that money, as well as extra allocation from its own funds, but admitted: “This will not clear the backlog but will allow us to maintain the condition of the roads.”
He added: “The recent harsh winter weather has increased deterioration of our roads and has contributed to the backlog.
“Costs in the highway maintenance industry have risen quite quickly, partly due to increasing oil prices.”
Coun Pennington said he believed the backlog for repairs would only worsen.
“This is because of the sheer volume of traffic and the weight of that traffic, as well as the varying elements that we have experienced,” he said.
“We have had more snow this winter that we’ve had for years, followed by long dry periods and torrential rain, and that has taken its toll on our roads.”
Responding to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the authority revealed last year it had resurfaced 59 roads at a cost of £1.9 million and ‘surface dressed’ 188, costing £1.5 million.
A further 50 roads received micro asphalt surfacing at a cost of £101,100.
The spokesman said there were ‘no hard and fast rules’ about which roads are surface dressed and which are resurfaced, but it was not a consequence of funding cuts.
“It depends on which roads are in the greatest need of repair to prevent further deterioration,” he said.
“Surface dressing is a very cost effective way of achieving this as well as restoring the road surface skid resistance.
“Other treatments are also used where they are a better option, including road resurfacing and micro asphalt.”
The authority has yet to draw up a list of roads that will be resurfaced or ‘surface dressed’ in 2013/14.
Coun Jeanette Sunderland, spokesman for the Liberal Democrat group, said the condition of the district’s roads did not only affect motorists, but were a ‘danger’ to cyclists and pedestrians.
“There is a concern about how long-term surface dressing is,” she added.