Devon councillor in rage over road maintenance funding
Devon County Council has joined forces with ten other rural authorities to warn the Government of the consequences of its funding proposals for road maintenance. Between them, the eleven councils are responsible for a quarter of England's entire road network.

They say Whitehall's assessment will mean urban areas getting more Government grant at the expense of rural council taxpayers.

Devon is set to lose £8m from its vital road maintenance budget following Government changes in the way it assesses spending needs - and bridging that gap will add 4 per cent on the council tax.

Whitehall effectively uses just two categories of road to measure overall need and has stunned Devon officials by saying that it costs twice as much to maintain a minor suburban estate road as a busy principal road linking towns and cities.

For example, according to Whitehall, a minor suburban estate road needs £4,140 per kilometre for maintenance. On the other hand, civil servants say a busy principal road such as the A379 dual carriageway linking Exeter to the M5 motorway only needs £2,070 per kilometre for its upkeep.

In comparison with many other areas of the country Devon has fewer suburban roads, but it has a vital network of principal roads such as the A379 or A380 which are used daily by thousands of commuters and are of major importance to the local economy.

Councillor David Morrish, environment portfolio holder, says ministers have been badly advised. "It really does beggar belief that civil servants seem to have no idea that with the largest road network in the country, Devon must have one of the greatest needs.

"To say that it costs less to maintain a major road than a minor one is plain daft. It makes me wonder whether these Whitehall analysts have ever visited or been on holiday in Devon. They need to get out from behind their desks and find out about life in a rural county."

Whitehall analysts also assess spending needs for road maintenance on the numbers of heavy lorries using local highways. According to Devon, this benefits urban areas at the expense of rural counties, which have many hundreds of miles of roads upon which local communities depend - but are not heavily used by goods lorries.
According to Morrish, another flaw is the measurement of traffic flow - Whitehall only measures traffic flow on major roads and uses this as an estimate of overall traffic flow on all roads.

"How can using data from less than a tenth of the whole network be an accurate assessment of need of all the county's roads," councillor Morrish adds. "If these assessments go through, council tax-payers will yet again be asked to pick up the shortfall.

"The prospect of an £8 million hole in the county's road maintenance budget as a result of the Government's proposed funding settlement is a very serious blow," he concluded.

Councillor David Morrish, environment portfolio holder, can be contacted on 01392 275985. For further information please contact Devon County Council Media & Public Relations Service on 01392 383290/383226.

Picture caption: the photographs show what, in Whitehall parlance, a ‘non-urban principal road’ and ‘other built up roads’ look like.