Warning over Swansea's £54m road repairs backlog

About £54m needs to be spent on clearing a backlog of repairs on Swansea's roads, a report has said.

It also warned more than half of the city's roads will be in a "poor" state by 2026 without further investment.

Swansea council's annual budget for all highways including pavements in 2017-18 is £2.2m and is half of what is needed to keep roads in a suitable condition.

The report to a scrutiny panel said there was an "urgent need" to increase resources to maintain the highway.

• Potholes send breakdown figures flying

• Rubbish and roads top council complaints

"The maintenance backlog of work for the authority's 1,000km [621 miles] of carriageways is calculated at £54m and recognises that without further investment the condition of the carriageway network will severely deteriorate over the next 10 years, significantly increasing the costs of planned and reactive maintenance," the report said.

"Current funding... is around 50% of that required to keep the carriageway network in its current condition."

It also recommended spending an extra £2m a year on roads and added that it was more cost effective to repair roads than fill in potholes.

Councillors on the roads and footway maintenance scrutiny working group will discuss the report on Wednesday.