Scottish Greens call for increased road repair funding
Expenditure for new roads should be used to pay for existing road maintenance say the Scottish Greens after the publication of an Audit Scotland report. [1]
Maintaining Scotland’s Roads reveals how local authority spending on roads maintenance “continues to decrease” and that councils spent £33 million less on planned and routine maintenance in 2014/15 than the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation Scotland “considers necessary to maintain the current condition of local roads”.
John Finnie MSP, the Scottish Greens’ transport spokesperson, said:
“The findings of this report will not surprise many. What’s important now is that action is taken to allocate adequate resources to ensure that Scotland’s roads are fit for purpose. With the tightening of local authority budgets, it’s understandable that many councils have struggled to keep up with road maintenance. That’s why Scottish Greens are fully supportive of expenditure being used to maintain our existing infrastructure rather than spending obscene sums on building new roads.”
ENDS
Notes:
[1] http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/news/roads-network-needs-attention