Glasgow City Council doubles road budget for pothole repairs

Glasgow has doubled its budget for road repairs to help surfaces recover from what the council described as the most damaging winter in over a decade.

In December, the city experienced its lowest temperatures in 12 years followed by heavy persistent rain.

The council said that the poor weather combined with traffic volume helped to generate 7,000 pothole reports in the first two months of 2023.

It said boosting the budget to £12m would ensure more potholes are fixed.

The money will also be spent on eliminating cracks and resurfacing roads.

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In January, the AA found that garages had reported a significant increase in wheel damage by potholes.

The motoring organisation said that years of underinvestment meant drivers were seeing more potholes than ever before.

Now Glasgow's road teams have found that 300,000 square metres of road surface in 130 city streets are in need of repair and maintenance.

The council said it would ensure "significant levels of additional work" were carried out in all 23 wards before the end of the financial year.

An AA survey found 50% of Scottish drivers said their roads were "poor"

Councillor Ruairi Kelly, city convener for neighbourhood services, said he shared the frustration of other road users who had noticed an increase in the number and size of potholes.

He added: "The winter is always a challenging time for road maintenance and the combined impact of low temperatures, rain and snow plays havoc with the condition of Glasgow's roads and footways.

"Now is the time of year we need to catch up on that work."

The additional £6m of funding has been temporarily reallocated from the neighbourhood infrastructure improvement fund.

• 'Potholes are dangerous and only getting worse'

Mr Kelly said: "This investment means that over the next year we can target more of those areas where issues have emerged and we've already identified where those problems are.

"Glasgow's roads have some of the highest usage in the country, which means more damage and more repairs required.

"While we are committed to improving local infrastructure, I'll also be making the case for a funding mechanisms which better recognises the national significance of Glasgow's road network to the Scotland's overall prosperity."

The neighbourhood infrastructure improvement fund is intended to provide money for each of the city's council wards to spend on local priorities.

The council said it was working to ensure local communities could actively participate in how the fund was used across the city.

So far a significant majority has yet to be earmarked for local projects and will remain unspent in this financial year.

The £6m that has been reallocated to road repairs will be restored to the neighbourhood infrastructure improvement fund in future years.