1. Campaigning for change
David Giles Director, Asphalt Industry Alliance

2. About the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA)
A partnership between the Mineral Products Association (MPA) and Eurobitume UK.
Aims to increase awareness of the asphalt industry and promote the uses and benefits of asphalt to specifiers, policymakers and the general public.
Key activity includes; supporting the All Party Parliamentary Group on Highways, Asphalt Now magazine, and Sharing Best event for local authority highway engineers.
We also support Road File, an online hub for road-related statistics from a range of UK and EU sources –
Plus, our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey.
I wanted to take this opportunity to explain what the Asphalt Industry Alliance is and what we do for those of you less familiar with our work…
The AIA is a partnership between the MPA and Eurobitume. These are essentially the trade associations for the aggregate producing companies and oil companies who produce bitumen in the UK.
We aim to promote the uses and benefits of asphalt to specifiers, decision makers, and the general public
Most of you will be very familiar with our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance – or ALARM – survey and I’ll talk more about this in a minute as it really is the cornerstone of what we do. We also hold this free event for local authority highway engineers, which continues to go from strength to strength. But you might not know that we also support the All Party Parliamentary Group on highways and campaign for additional funding for local roads, and that is what I want to talk about today.
Thursday, 8th November 2018

3. Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance survey
ALARM survey now in its 23rd year.
Provides a snapshot of the condition of the local road network and funding.
Information comes from both quantitative and qualitative research and is independently verified.
Impactful – ‘don’t just take our word for it’ – reports what local authorities are telling us.
Both industry and media consider it to be a valuable and reliable source of information.
Sunday, April 07, 2019

4. ALARM 2018 key findings: long-term underfunding of local road network
“The volume and weight of traffic we are seeing is causing the network to deteriorate faster than the money we have to repair it can cope with.”
Wednesday October

5. ALARM 2018: Local Authority sources of funding
£3.5bn
spent on LA highway maintenance
Total annual highway maintenance expenditure: £3.5 billion
Funding covers not just carriageway maintenance but also bridge repairs, cyclical maintenance, street lighting etc
Asset value in excess of £400bn, but less than 0.01% spent on annual maintenance
45% of highway budgets come from local authorities’ own sources. (England)
41% of highway budgets come from DfT (England)
By 2020, local authorities will have faced a reduction to core funding from the Government of nearly £16 billion since 2010 (LGA July 2018.)
Section 41 Highways Act 1980 : “the highway authority ...are under a duty to maintain the highway…”
Sunday, April 07, 2019

6. Department for Transport : Highway maintenance funding
DfT: £1.2 bn
Sunday, April 07, 2019

7. ALARM 2018 findings: budgets
Overall the total highway maintenance budgets reported increased by around 20%.
However:
The amount spent on the carriageway itself is down from 58% to 56%.
And:
The headline numbers obscure that there have been winners and losers when it comes to budgets.
A third of English councils reported a cut in total highway maintenance budget.
In Wales only a third of local authorities saw an increase.
Sunday, April 07, 2019

8. ALARM 2018 findings: budgets
North /South divide
Local authorities in the North are responsible for 45% of the local road network in England and Wales but only 35% of the funding.
Average overall highway budget in North: £19.32m
Average overall highway budget in South: £26.95m
Local authorities in London
Average total highway maintenance budget per authority £9.2m (£26.2m in England).
Sunday, April 07, 2019

9. ALARM 2018 findings: budget shortfall
Budget shortfall – the difference between the annual budget that highway departments calculate they require to keep the carriageway in reasonable order and the amount they actually receive.
The shortfall reported in ALARM 2018 is £555.7m in England – the equivalent of £3.3m per authority – down from £5m per authority last year.
51% of local authorities reported transferring capital funds for highways improvements into revenue budgets for maintenance work. Is this hiding the shortfall?
Sunday, April 07, 2019

10. ALARM 2018 findings: One time catch up cost
Sunday, April 07, 2019

11. ALARM 2018 findings: Structural road conditions
20% of roads classed as structurally poor – with less than 5 year’s life remaining.
Sunday, April 07, 2019

12. ALARM 2018 findings: Road Condition Index (RCI) (i)
New area of survey for 2018.
Highlights continued prioritisation on principal roads.
Impact on resilience of the network as a whole - 71% of principal roads equates to 11% of local roads in mileage terms.
Sunday, April 07, 2019

13. ALARM 2018 findings: Road Condition Index (RCI) (ii)
Sunday, April 07, 2019

14. Post ALARM: Keeping local roads on the agenda in 2018
ALARM report provides a valuable and reliable source of information – able to leverage the case for increased funding for local roads at a high level.
Meeting with Roads Minister Jesse Norman MP to set the case for additional, sustained investment.
Plus:
Meetings with DfT,
Supply of information to Yasmin Kereshi MP for Westminster Hall debate
Andy MacDonald MP, Shadow Transport Minister,
George Russell, Chair of Welsh Assembly’s Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee.
Response submitted to the Transport Select Committee inquiry into local road funding.
On-going communication campaign – e.g. The Times last Saturday.
Advocating investment to stop on-going decline and to bring roads up to a reasonable condition to allow cost effective asset management in the future
Wednesday October

15. Autumn budget
Sunday, April 07, 2019

16. Looking ahead
In order to tackle the scale of the problem £1.5 billion additional funding – equivalent to redistributing 3p per litre from existing fuel duty – is needed.
This would allow the annual £555.7m shortfall reported in ALARM to be addressed
AND
Provide £1 billion to tackle the legacy of underfunding allowing the local road network to be brought to a point from which local authorities can effectively maintain it.
If we were to hypothecate 3p / litre from fuel duty ,(which essentially means ringfence) similar to what has been proposed for the Major Road network, that would raise £1.5 bn / year that would be enough to cover the ongoing shortfall of £0.5Bn and additionally provide sufficient funds over the next 10 years to bring the network in England and Wales back to a standard fit for 21st century Britain and one which could then be effectively maintained going forward.
We’ve put this to both Jesse Norman and Andy McDonald and, while we won’t hold our breath, it has certainly given them food for thought.
Wednesday October

17. Thank you for listening. For further information: www.asphaltuk.org
@AIA_Asphalt
Wednesday October