To read the briefing see here:

The Case for Investing in Highway Maintenance

The Spending Review was on 27th October. Now published is a key briefing that the UKRLG Asset Management provided to help the Department for Transport make the case to HM Treasury for investing in highway maintenance.

The local road network is fundamental to life in England both today and for our future. It is the biggest physical asset the public sector owns, and it is valued at almost half a trillion pounds (estimated gross replacement cost of £400bn in 2012).

Other transport infrastructure such as the strategic road network, the rail network, or our airport systems all play key roles in national socio economic activity, however, none of these are as indispensable at the local road network virtually every journey begins and ends on a local road, and without it, the English economy (2019 GDP of approx. £1.3 trillion) would collapse to near zero.

It is a huge and complex system that includes the inspection, maintenance and renewal of roads, footways, cycle routes, bridges, tunnels, retaining walls, lighting, drainage, traffic signals, trees, land and much more filling potholes is just the tip of the iceberg.

This pack describes the investment needed for the English local road network (excluding London), both now and in the future, along with the significant benefits that are aligned to all Government’s core policy objectives.

Funding for local road maintenance provides good to very good return on investment, with much lower risk than major projects to construct new infrastructure, and the ability to quickly gear up to spend money and generate benefits via “shovel ready” schemes. 

Longer term certainty of funding will also help maximise the proven benefits provided by good quality local roads.

The local road sector has prepared a comprehensive response structured around the Public Value Framework (as developed by HMT ).  This includes an overview and outline of the approach, followed by a summary of each of the four Pillars, and is further supported by detail on each of the 13 Areas within the Public Value Framework

This is complemented by an extensive set of case studies in the Appendix these are examples of good practice that reflect wider practice across the sector rather than isolated “one offs”.

The DfT incentive fund self assessment results provide evidence of widespread maturity within the sector and continuing improvement in the adoption of good practices for asset management, resilience, customer focus, benchmarking, efficiency and operational delivery

Produced by the UKRLG Asset Management Board to provide evidence for DfT’s consideration. The content within does not necessarily reflect the views of DfT.