Дефицит в £114 млн: в Айршире выявлен огромный задолженность по ремонту дорог

More than £114m of work would be required to clear Ayrshire’s road maintenance backlog, as new figures reveal significant staffing, contractor and budget pressures within the region’s shared roads service. The Ayrshire Roads Alliance (ARA), which manages roads for East and South Ayrshire councils, estimates a carriageway maintenance backlog of £58.6m in East Ayrshire and £55.7m in South Ayrshire. The figures are contained in its updated Roads Asset Management Plan for 2026 to 2031, which goes before the Ayrshire Shared Services Joint Committee on Friday. ARA stresses that the £114.3m figure is not a proposed spending programme. It represents the theoretical cost of treating all sections of road currently classified as amber or red within a single year. Officials say carrying out all that work at once would be neither practical nor desirable because of the disruption it would cause. Read More: However, the report also calculates the level of investment required simply to stop the network deteriorating further. East Ayrshire would require an average £9.518m a year in carriageway surfacing over the next decade, with South Ayrshire requiring £7.778m annually. The plan warns that if the councils fail to maintain those “steady state” expenditure levels over the next ten years, the carriageway asset will deteriorate. The calculations also exclude future inflation. The long-term funding challenge comes as a separate ARA financial report reveals contrasting positions between its East and South Ayrshire operations during 2025/26. East Ayrshire Local Delivery spent £5.664m against a £5.127m budget, leaving it £537k over budget – around 10.5 per cent. South Ayrshire Local Delivery, meanwhile, spent £4.870m against a £5.191m budget, an underspend of £321k, or around 6.2 per cent. ARA as a whole nevertheless finished just £42k below its £14.086m revenue budget after its Strategic Delivery operation recorded a £258k underspend. The detailed figures show East Ayrshire’s overspend came despite substantial staffing savings. ARA recorded £871k of savings associated with vacant posts and staff turnover in East Ayrshire, particularly within the Roads Maintenance Unit. At the same time, expenditure on roads maintenance subcontractors was £313k higher than budgeted. The report does not state that the additional contractor expenditure was caused by vacancies, and the papers establish no direct connection between the two. Other East Ayrshire pressures included £189k for winter maintenance materials and £142k for EV charging and parking machine maintenance. Income was also below expectations, including shortfalls of £223k from roads maintenance, £299k from capital fees and £169k from parking. South Ayrshire’s £321k underspend also comes with qualifications. The favourable position included £378k relating to delayed dredging works at Girvan Harbour, rather than representing permanent savings. South Ayrshire also recorded £202k of employee savings from vacancies and turnover and spent £341k less than budgeted on materials. However, it too experienced higher contractor costs, including an additional £262k on roads maintenance contractors, as well as £78k on street-lighting contractors and £90k on externally delivered winter maintenance routes. Despite the financial pressures and scale of the theoretical maintenance backlog, the overall condition of Ayrshire’s roads has improved in recent years. The proportion of East Ayrshire’s network considered for maintenance treatment has fallen from 36.8 per cent in the 2019-21 figures to 31.2 per cent. In South Ayrshire, it has fallen from 40.9 per cent to 33.9 per cent. Members of the joint committee are being asked to approve the updated Asset Management Plan and note ARA’s financial position.