It has been a year of records in the ALARM survey as the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) delivers its 28th edition, according to its Chairman, Rick Green, our guest on this week’s Highways Voices.

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Local authorities have once again shown their commitment to the survey with a record 81% return, improving the data available to produce the report.

“However, the other records that show up, are maybe slightly more depressing,” Rick Green tells Highways Voices. “The shortfall in the budget for the year is now some £1.3 billion more than the local authorities said they need in order to maintain the network ,” he added. “The average time between resurfacing with local authority worlds now stands at more than 100 years.”

The ALARM survey, published today reports that local authority highway teams in England and Wales only received around two-thirds of what they needed to stop our local roads from further deterioration and that more than £14 billion is now needed to fix the backlog of carriageway repairs.

Despite the small increase in overall highway maintenance budgets reported, less is being spent on the carriageway itself and rising costs due to inflationary pressures mean engineers have reported being forced to postpone or cancel road schemes to make savings.

You'll also hear the news from our partners and who Adrian's tipping his hat to in "Adrian's Accolade" this week.