The Department for Transport has been accused of proposing a ‘two-tier road network’, where the maintenance needs of country roads in shire areas are overlooked.
The DfT is consulting on changing the formula to base funding on the length of each council’s unclassified roads, rather than on unclassified network condition data – seen as flawed – and to reduce the proportion of funding going to roads in the bottom quartile.
Matthew Lugg, chair of the County Surveyors’ Society engineering committee, wanted the formula to be overhauled to end the ‘crazy’ situation where councils with roads in the worst state were rewarded.
But the shake-up leaves some of England’s most sparsely-populated areas facing significant cuts in their capital budgets; 11 stand to receive 5-12% less in 2008/09 than they did this year, including Shropshire, Norfolk and Cumbria.
Thirty-four authorities suffered cuts of 10% or more last year, but this time the cuts would remain in place in the long-term.
Phil Crossland, assistant director for transportation and highways at Shropshire, which stands to lose £1.5M next year, insisted: ‘The formula should reflect maintenance needs. Accredited inspectors collect the unclassified road condition data. If they’re not happy with the data, they should improve the process, rather than saying “it’s too difficult”. The Government fails to recognise the challenges of sparsely-populated areas.’
Norfolk, which would be the biggest loser – having its budget cut by £2.2M – believes it is ‘unacceptable’ that rural authorities should cover funding hikes for urban areas. The biggest winners would be authorities such as Liverpool and Birmingham, the DfT has suggested.
But the DfT claims the figures it produced as ‘exemplifications’ of the impact of the changes were only for illustration.