Repairing our Roads
Audit Scotland last week published its report on the maintenance of roads around Scotland. And there was the usual “shock horror” reaction from the press and the motor car lobbies. It all implied that that our roads are not in tip top condition because Councils are lazy or daft or something.
I admit many roads and pavements in Edinburgh are in a poor state. But that’s deliberate. And I’d better explain that very quickly!
Most people will remember the Thatcher and Major years. Local councils had their money squeezed right out of them – because of central government cuts and the poll tax. Your Council at that time had a choice to make: something had to go - should we keep up our road maintenance programme or should we do all we could to protect school budgets? Of course, it was more complicated than that – but in choosing to protect children (and other vulnerable groups too), I think the Council at that time made the right choice. After all, kids only get one chance of an education.
That’s what I mean by deliberate. The Council at that time cut back on road maintenance year after year in order to keep up spending in schools.
When the government changed in 1997, Gordon Brown didn’t rush in to spend straight away, he got rid of almost all our National Debt first. Then, when the public investment did begin in about 2000 the priority, quite rightly, was schools and hospitals first. In Edinburgh we’ve built and are building 20 new or refurbished schools. And we’re starting on four new old folks homes too. That’s quite something.
And now we can start to turn our attention to transport. On our roads we’ve many years of underspending to make up. As my colleague Councillor Bob Cairns said, we’ll need a steady £15million every year for 10 years before we can get back to where we should be. Its much harder to re-build, as we’re doing now, than it is to destroy, as I believe the Thatcher years showed. We’ve made a start, with £24million committed in the past 2 years. But there’s a long road ahead (pardon the pun!)
I admit many roads and pavements in Edinburgh are in a poor state. But that’s deliberate. And I’d better explain that very quickly!
Most people will remember the Thatcher and Major years. Local councils had their money squeezed right out of them – because of central government cuts and the poll tax. Your Council at that time had a choice to make: something had to go - should we keep up our road maintenance programme or should we do all we could to protect school budgets? Of course, it was more complicated than that – but in choosing to protect children (and other vulnerable groups too), I think the Council at that time made the right choice. After all, kids only get one chance of an education.
That’s what I mean by deliberate. The Council at that time cut back on road maintenance year after year in order to keep up spending in schools.
When the government changed in 1997, Gordon Brown didn’t rush in to spend straight away, he got rid of almost all our National Debt first. Then, when the public investment did begin in about 2000 the priority, quite rightly, was schools and hospitals first. In Edinburgh we’ve built and are building 20 new or refurbished schools. And we’re starting on four new old folks homes too. That’s quite something.
And now we can start to turn our attention to transport. On our roads we’ve many years of underspending to make up. As my colleague Councillor Bob Cairns said, we’ll need a steady £15million every year for 10 years before we can get back to where we should be. Its much harder to re-build, as we’re doing now, than it is to destroy, as I believe the Thatcher years showed. We’ve made a start, with £24million committed in the past 2 years. But there’s a long road ahead (pardon the pun!)
posted by Councillor Ewan Aitken at
9:28 am
