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Utilities 'ruin' roads
THE BRITISH ROAD Federation and the County Surveyors Society have both given evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee inquiry into road maintenance.
The BRF's main grievance was the public utility services not paying for the road damage they cause. Mandatory responsibilities to reinstate road surfaces and the road structure should be placed on them, it said.
BRF director Kenneth CanneII said: "Public utilities have escaped their responsibilities at the expense of the road users and reliance on voluntary cooperation has failed almost totally."
Robert Philipson, chairman of the technical committee of BRF, and Philip Bays, technical adviser to BRF, stressed that the law on this subject should be reexamined.
In giving evidence to the inquiry, Mr Philipson said: "The Public Utilities Street Works Act now needs to be reviewed. And this is made more urgent by the prospect of extensive works likely to be associated with the installation of cable television."
Road maintenance spending was discussed and once more found to be wanting. "It has fallen by 11 per cent in Britain as traffic has risen by 18 per cent and total road length by three per cent," Mr Cannel! said. "In addition, two severe winters in the past five years have caused serious road damage."
Since 1973, motorway traffic has increased by 60 per cent, resulting in far heavier carriageway wear and tear than anticipated, Mr Cannel] explained. "About 400 miles need to be reconstructed during the next five years.
The County Surveyors Society guided the committee's attention to the increase in heavy traffic and the plummeting finance for road maintenance.
Surely this was a good enough reason for standards to be set on a national basis to ensure "uniformity of practice throughout the country?" said Arthur Jacomb, president of the society and county surveyor of Hampshire.
"The combination of reduced spending and increased heavy traffic — a 260 per cent increase in the over-eight-tons-unladen weight class — must have a detrimental effect on the conditions of the network," he continued.
A lack of funds has caused local authorities to rely on "short-term remedial measures," particularly for pavements, Mr Jacomb explained.
This must produce far worse roads and necessitate a massive injection of funds, very shortly, to restore the roads to an acceptable condition, he stressed.