Road Maintenance Budget Full of Holes

11.51.32am GMT Thu 11th Mar 2010

After one of the worst winters in decades, which left a borough's roads scarred and pockmarked like the surface of the Moon, Liberal Democrat Opposition Councillors have uncovered a sharp drop in spending on road maintenance in Labour-run Lambeth Council.

Spending on roads maintenance between 2002 and 2006 under the Liberal Democrat-led Council totalled nearly £5 million after a huge wave of protest from residents about the appalling state of the roads drove the previous Labour administration out of office. Yet since 2006 a mere 3.6 million had been spent under Labour during their four years in office.

Not only has the budget drastically reduced under Labour, the official figures reveal, but the number of roads resurfaced has also shrunk over the same period.

During the 2002-2006 period 109 roads in the borough were completely resurfaced, compared with just 67 roads between 2006 and 2010. And the current financial year will see the second lowest number of roads resurfaced over the entire period.

Liberal Democrats estimated during the 2002-2006 Council that unless spending was significantly increased that it could take 20 years to restore all the Borough's roads to a satisfactory condition.

Lib Dem Councillor Julian Heather said, "Labour likes to blame the state of the roads on the recent cold snap but this situation has not happened over night. Labour has slashed the roads budget when they should have been steadily increasing it, because there's an awful lot of catching-up to do."

Cllr Heather added, "Like so much under Labour, it's all talk and visions, while key services that most people see in return for their Council Tax are starved of funds. Whether it's roads, parks, libraries or leisure centres, Labour's essential infrastructural budgets have just been left full of holes. However, if Labour spin was tarmac we'd now have roads like billiard tables."