Industry commentators welcomed the Chancellor’s commitment to investing in infrastructure in today’s Spending Review and they look forward to hearing the detail of where money will be spent tomorrow. But some warned that cuts to revenue spending will hit highway maintenance. 

CIHT chief executive Sue Percy said: “We welcome the recognition that infrastructure investment is a driver of economic growth. Transport infrastructure is vital to the whole spectrum of society. Investment will create and retain jobs while supporting economic recovery.”

But she added the Institution has concerns with the reduction of 9.3% for the Department for Transport everyday budget and the impact this will have on local transport schemes and the maintenance of the local road network. “Local authorities need increased investment to address their highways maintenance backlog,” she said. “Failure to address deteriorating assets will result in much higher costs to rectify the problems in the future.”

Civil Engineering Contractors Association’s external affairs director Alasdair Reisner said: “We understand that tomorrow’s announcement will be very positive in terms of roads spending and we will probably see projects from the National Infrastructure Plan taken forward.

“Continued support for the Managed Motorways programme and further improvements to the strategic road network would be good. But a cutback in revenue spending could cause problems for highways maintenance.”

Institution of Civil Engineers director general Nick Baveystock said: “We are encouraged to see a review with actual infrastructure investment at its heart. It is however, not all good news. Departmental cuts will inevitably place further pressure on local authority budgets with road maintenance likely to suffer the brunt.”

RAC Foundation’s Philip Gomm commented: “We welcome today’s long term commitment to funding, but capital expenditure on our strategic roads is not yet back to the levels seen before the cuts started in 2011 and the cut in resource spending risks exacerbating the pothole plague.”

Campaign for Better Transport chief executive Stephen Joseph said: “Massive spending on new roads might have been in vogue 50 years ago, but what the country needs now is better management of our increasingly potholed network and to provide real choices about how to get around."

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Photo credit: Terrinea 17 Support