Engineer Andy - such a detailed replyi and so informative from a fellow Engineer, I would be interested to know where you have gained such knowledge and which Area you have have worked in.......

Regards Christo............

I've worked for many years (as a Building Services Engineer in the private sector) with colleagues who do highways project work for councils and government, as well as many projects myself for the public sector, experiences (and accounts from colleagues) of both have lead me to my conclusions.

I also regularly deal with my local and county council on highways issues as I'm one of those people who regularly report faults (potholes, lighting, signs, etc) and take a keen interest in the state of the road network (at least in the areas surrounding where I live/work/travel generally) as a commuter (when I'm in work!) and as a cyclist. There also happens to be several RTAs in my area which are attributed to poor road layout/design, but which are rarely looked at for "monetary" reasons, yet I often notice that certain pet council projects (even in Tory areas) still get the go-ahead (e.g. spending tens of thousands to better light a cemetary or "freshen up" a swimming pool reception [neither needed]!).

The local Cambridge Guided Busway, though popular, cost an absolute fortune (going so far over budget that Cambs CC couldn't afford most of the stations, only getting platforms and portacabins instead) and nearly bankrupting the council - the daft thing was that for all the flashy technology, they could've got by with a far cheaper dedicated road [no "guided" sections and fancy technology that goes with it] with barriers to stop other vehicles using the roads.

In my view so much money each year is lost by delays caused by poorly designed/maintained roads (whether by accidents, damage caused to vehicles from pothole etc or confusing/poorly laid-out signage, etc)

Don't completely agreed that taxes need to increase, just spend the road tax on the roads and fix the roads properly.

It's the same thing - if VED is spent on the roads it can't also support general revenue for things like health, education, defence, etc.

And 'politically correct' schemes, funding the EU bureacrats' gravy train.

The list of local and national government expenditures which do not benefit the UK taxpayer is depressingly lengthy.

No doubt backroomers can draw up their own lists.

There simply isn't the money to keep up with the pace at which roads are deteriorating and nor is there likley to be in the foreseeable future. My impression is that the average condition of road surfaces has deteriorated of late, with the bad weather possibly accelerating the process.

I rad somewhere (possibly in the Telegraph) that many councils (especially rural ones) had 200-300 YEARS of roads maintenance backlogs BEFORE the 2008 crash, mainly because they "diverted" funds away from those budgets into worthless projects such as multi-million pound new or refursbished Council Offices, paying their staff huge slary increases (mostly managers) but without any productivity increases or reductions in perks (many have 30-35 days holiday pa and USE the annual sick leave "entitlement" as extra holiday days, plus all the dodgy stuff that goes on as well).

My parents' road for example, even though its a very well used road (a short-cut round the town centre at peak hours) hasn't been resurfaced for 25 years, just patched occasionally (and very badly). The best thing to do is for EVERYONE to report potholes, gashes in the road and uneven surfaces (caused by poor repairs or other roadworks) to BOTH the council (officially, e.g. via their website - get a ref. number) and the various non-council websites that pass on such details to councils, just in case your council-reported fault "disappears" from their system (this has happened on several occasions for me).