Surrey Roads Budget Under-spent for the Fifth Year Running

2.06.00pm GMT Sat 2nd Feb 2008

The total spending on roads this year will be £10 million less than last year

In answer to a question from John Doran, Lib Dem transport spokesperson, the Conservative executive member for transport on Surrey County Council admitted that the council was on target to under-spend its roads budget by nearly £1 million pounds. Mr Munro said "£1 million is about right".

"I am stunned," said John Doran, "the state of the roads is the biggest single issue in Surrey. For 5 years now the Conservatives have failed to spend their budget whilst moaning that the government has not given them enough money. At a meeting last year I pointed out that the Highways Agency regularly over-programmes its maintenance schemes as there are inevitable difficulties that appear during the year such as bad weather, engineering difficulties and electric cables or water mains in unexpected places. This was dismissed out of hand by Mr Munro. So much for the council wanting to follow best practice."

"It is actually much worse than that as this year the amount budgeted to be spent on roads is the lowest for 5 years and £8 million pounds less than last year! On top of that we had a great fanfare from the Tories that they were spending more than a million extra on flooding. As the answer to my question makes clear this "extra" money was taken from the roads budget, meaning that the total amount spent on roads (excluding drainage) this year will be £10 million less than last year!"

"At a recent transport select committee we were told that it would take £200m just to replace those roads that have failed so badly they are beyond normal maintenance. At the current rate of investment it will take about 30 years to repair them. In the meantime other roads will become irreparable requiring a repair that costs the taxpayer 10 times a repair done on time, while claims against the council soar."

"We are now seeing the consequences of the Tories following a market driven agenda, followed up with reorganisation after re-organisation, instead of getting the basics right and spending the money they've got."