A key figure behind this week’s headline-grabbing ALARM survey of local roads has said it is ‘disgusting’ that the country has allowed the network to deteriorate to the point where councils intervene based on which roads pose the most risk to themselves.
The 2025 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey found that 52% of local authority-managed roads are in either adequate or poor condition, meaning that they have no more than 15 years of life.
Speaking to Highways’ All Roads Lead podcast, Ian Lancaster, technical lead for Eurobitume and a director of the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), which produces the ALARM survey, described this as a ‘shocking statistic’
He said he like 'to know at what point we as a country and as a developed economy’ had arrived at this situation, adding that he saw it as equally damning that 65% of respondents to the survey – local authority highways managers – said they had seen a decline in the structural condition of their roads over the last year.
AIA chairman David Giles (pictured), director of Continental Bitumen Limited, said he ‘absolutely agreed’ with Dr Lancaster.
He told the podcast: ‘It's disgusting that we've allowed this hugely important asset to get into this condition.
‘We are reaching the point now where it's just managed decline. We're already seeing interventions taking place where there is the greatest risk of injury, harm, basically where the roads are presenting the most risk to the local authority. You know, we are seeing that and we've heard that anecdotally.
‘Is that acceptable in this country, one of the leading economies of the world, that we're deciding where to repair roads based upon the risk that they present to the local authority?’
Mr Giles also expressed scepticism that using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect defects would improve the situation.
‘Does that give you more money? Does that give us more funding?’ he asked.
‘No, what it does, it automates and maybe does more of the standardisation. At the end of the day, it's still the politicians that have to decide, whether it's an AI model that's telling them or whether it's a spreadsheet filled in the traditional way.
'It is still the politician that makes the decision as to how much money is going to be allocated to our local roads and at the moment their decision is that they have allowed managed decline’.
