Fife Council is to take a new approach to road repairs in a bid to reduce its growing maintenance backlog.
The authority is fighting a losing battle against potholes, seeing its bill for bringing the region’s roads up to scratch almost triple in seven years to £82.5 million.
Last year, the council repaired an average of 600 potholes every week.It now intends to take a more preventative tack and focus on fixing problems before they deteriorate.
Despite an additional £49m being poured into the roads budget for a 10-year period, the list of repairs has continued to grow, leaving motorists negotiating deteriorating highways.
Urgent fixes, including filling potholes created by harsh winters and flooding over the last few years, have drained time and resources.
Senior manager for asset, network and passenger transport, Soma Raviraj, said: “The proposed action is to minimise the occurrence of potholes in the first place and that relates to doing more schemes, more reconstructions.
“We need to do long-term planning to identify where investment is most needed and to go in with the right route treatment at the right time.
“We are struggling because investment is often necessary to deal with reactive maintenance, like patching. More and more, we are spending money on patching.”
Eliminating the backlog, however, would remain difficult, he said. “The gap has continued to widen and it’s still likely to grow because investment, not just in Fife but all over the UK, is not at the rate required to keep up with the deterioration.
“It’s going to be a huge battle to reverse this trend.”
While Fife’s backlog of repairs has increased substantially, the region’s position in the Scottish league table of road conditions has improved, rising from 23rd out of 32 local authorities to 16th last year.
Mr Raviraj said this indicated a “modest improvement” in road conditions as a result of the investment.
However, Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay Conservative councillor David Dempsey said: “The public don’t give a hoot if we are 23rd, 21st or 16th in the league table, they are only interested in the state of the roads.
“There is nothing in this report or action plan that actually fixes the roads and surely, that’s the action everyone wants.”
Opposition leader, Councillor Peter Grant, said eliminating the backlog was an unrealistic expectation.
He also suggested the council could come in for just as much criticism as it does for potholes if motorists are repeatedly held up by road works.
About £8.3m is to be spent annually on Fife’s roads over the next three years.
Council leader Alex Rowley said: “I haven’t seen some of the roads in such a state as we are seeing them right now.”