By Steve Bargeton, political editor

BRINGING SCOTLAND’S road network up to standard will cost a staggering £2 billion—more than the Executive’s entire transport budget.

A report by spending watchdog Audit Scotland published today estimates £1.5 billion is needed to bring the local authority road network up to scratch and a further £325 million to repair the trunk road network.

Councils are responsible for 51,000km of A-roads and other roads in Scotland.

Overall the report estimates around 40% of all local roads and a third of A-roads “may require some form of maintenance...”

Local authority road condition is assessed using a traffic light system with green for “acceptable” condition, amber meaning further investigation is need to see if repairs are required and red indicating the road must be repaired.

In Fife the report found more than 40% of roads were at amber and about 15% were at red.

In Dundee around 35% of roads were on amber and more than 10% on red.

In Perth and Kinross around 30% of roads were amber and 10% red, while Angus had 30% at amber and around 8% at red.

Regarding trunk roads the report said, “There has been mixed progress against targets to reduce the proportion of trunk roads requiring close monitoring and around £325 million may be needed to bring the network up to standard.”

There are some 3500km of trunk roads in Scotland, representing about 6% of the road network.

Between 1994 and 2000 the proportion of trunk road surface with a residual life of less than five years increased from 11.6% to 15.5%.

“Despite the additional funding, the proportion of sampled trunk road surface with a residual life of less than five years had increased to 22.4% by 2004/05,” said the report.

The report also makes grim reading for hard-pressed commuters, making it clear ministers have failed to tackle congestion.

“Road traffic congestion is largely a localised problem but efforts to reduce it through stabilising traffic growth are unlikely to succeed,” it said.

A 2004 survey found, overall, 12% of car journeys were delayed by traffic congestion.

Some of the worst chokepoints were on the approaches to the tolled Forth and Tay bridges.

In 2002 ministers said they wanted to stabilise road traffic at 2001 levels by 2021.

But, since then, traffic volumes have continued to increase with the latest estimates predicting that by 2021 levels will be up 27%.

Ministers are now planning to ditch the target.

But it was not all bad news for ministers in the Audit Scotland report, which said the Executive has “performed well” against most of its transport targets and is on course to invest a record £2.3 billion in transport next year.

The number of rail passenger journeys has increased by 48% to 75 million in 10 years.

The use of bus services has increased by 23 million passengers since 1999/00 and user satisfaction is “high.”

“The £159 million national concessionary travel scheme is proving popular, but there is a risk that higher-than-expected usage will exhaust the scheme’s budget,” said the report.

The Auditor General for Scotland, Robert Black, said, “Investment in transport is significant and growing.

“There is a huge challenge ahead in developing a transport network that balances support for economic growth against the need for a sustainable transport system that minimises the impact on the environment.”

Transport minister Tavish Scott (pictured) said, “I am very pleased Audit Scotland has firstly recognised that this government has established very clear objectives for transport and, secondly, that we must tackle the choices people make between the car and public transport.

“We do accept that road traffic levels are rising and local congestion on our roads network must be tackled.

“Through Scotland’s national transport strategy, which we will publish soon, we will address how we will improve on the targets for greenhouse gas emissions and traffic levels.”

SNP transport spokesman Fergus Ewing said the report showed the administration failed to spend its transport budget effectively.

“As a result, they have neglected local authority commitments such as roads, bridges and street-lighting, and now we are in the ridiculous situation where some local authorities are turning off street lights to save money,” he said.

“Little improvement has been made in road congestion and little has been done to tackle it.

“Instead of sitting on their hands, the Lib-Lab Government should be establishing more and larger park-and-ride schemes and proactively promoting home-working and flexi-working to give people the chance to avoid the rush hour.”

Iain Ferguson, CBI Scotland’s policy executive, described the near-£2 billion bill to bring the road network up to standard as “worrying.”

“Small businesses, in particular, are affected by a poor standard of local roads in Scotland and we would like to see local authorities compelled to address this situation, which is already at an unacceptable level.

“On safety grounds alone, repairs to Scotland’s road network must be increased.”

A spokesman for the Executive agency Transport Scotland said, “Transport Scotland have identified work which is required to be done to the trunk road which amounts to £325m.

“This does not include anything that requires urgent attention and the value amounts to just 2.5 % of the entire trunk road asset value of £12bn.”

She said there are “record levels” of roads investment.

She said, “Our structural repairs budget has risen from £50m to £62m in the last year and overall spending on motorways and trunk roads has gone up from £211m in 02/03 to £335m in 06/07.”