Just weeks after HBPW’s Jon Livesey warned that Britain’s road network could soon be in crisis, organisers behind the UK leg of the Tour De France have fallen under the spotlight for “lavishing” almost £6m on highway improvements in the build up to the first leg of the legendary race.
Local authorities in charge of the 400km of roads on the route of the Tour’s UK Grand Depart, had, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, been on a highways spending spree to ensure that all televised routes were in top shape.
But despite this, various soothsayers – including the Local Government Association and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association – maintain that Britain is still on course for a highway maintenance crisis unless far reaching action is taken to address the problem of crumbling roads.
Partner, Jon Livesey, said: “The Tour de France is one of the highest profile and most televised sporting events in the world, so there was no way local authorities were going to be seen in anything other than an exemplary light, hence their extensive attention to highway maintenance in counties like West and South Yorkshire.
“However, there are somewhere in the region of 293,000km of locally maintained roads in England and Wales and its those highways that are really starting to show the cracks, quite literally. Unless there is some sustained up-front investment by the government in this area of the country’s infrastructure, motorists can expect to be in for a bumpy ride over the coming months and years. Patching potholes has its limits.”