1 week Ago
More than 10,000 potholes were fixed in Swindon’s roads in the last 12 months – but the councillor in charge of those efforts says they are merely sticking plasters. But solving what is approaching a road crisis in both Swindon and the wider country is not possible given the level of resources allocated compared to the scale of the programme. Councillor Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet member for transport and the environment, got cabinet approval for a new three-year plan for resurfacing roads across the borough last month.
But he says it’s a constant effort just to try and keep up: “The roads in that three-year Local Transport Plan should have already been resurfaced, and there are roads that haven’t made into into the plan that really should also have been done before now.” Cllr Watts says there is a huge backlog of roads that need work across the country and that Swindon has its share: “The Local Government Association estimates that the backlog for England and Wales of roads that need work would cost £17 billion; our share of that is probably about £56m. READ MORE: We met the men fixing Swindon's potholes “Our highways budget has been about £4.
2m a year for road maintenance. And we’ve received about £1.5m extra from central government for this financial year 2025-26.
“We welcome any extra money, but this is, at best, subsistence.” Cllr Watts says years of declining support for council budgets from Whitehall have brought the roads to something of a crisis point: “We have been through a 12-year period of managed decline that is now at the tipping point. It is our task to prioritise keeping roads open and traffic flowing using whatever levers and methods that are available to us.
” Cllr Watts says he sympathises with residents’ frustrations: “If people look at the three-year transport plan and say’ what about this road, or that road’, I’d agree with them. And they might see us patching up potholes and ask why we don’t resurface the road, and they’re probably right, it needs it– but that’s the difference between thousands of pounds and hundreds of thousands.” While he would very much like a lot of extra money to be dedicated to roads maintenance, Cllr Watts says a cash injection wouldn’t fix the issue quickly: “The industry has shrunk, land there isn’t spare capacity sitting around to be able to fix all the roads quickly even if we had the money.
” “I’m confident that the government is aware of this crisis, and hope that we will continue to see incremental increases in the funding through the life of the parliament. Currently, highway grants are allocated annually. We hope that the government will also work to a three-year allocation allowing us to plan more effectively.
”.
