Renfrewshire Council statement re Audit Scotland report: “Maintaining Scotland’s roads – A follow up report”

The Audit Scotland report shows Renfrewshire Council is performing relatively well compared to many other authorities in Scotland in terms of road condition and investment in our roads.

Renfrewshire Council has been one of the highest spending local authorities on roads maintenance between 2011/12 and 2014/15* and the percentage of our roads in an acceptable condition rose by two percent during that period, which reflected our investment. *spending just over £9,000 per kilometre of road,to ensure good quality of work is carried out.

Around 60 percent of Renfrewshire’s council-maintained roads are in acceptable condition, which is in line with the national average. We’re also one of 14 local authorities in Scotland to spend more than necessary to maintain current road condition in 2014/15.

This is despite a reduction in our overall spend on road maintenance between 2011/12 and 2014/15 which – as the Audit Scotland report makes clear – because public spending pressures on all councils mean we have to make difficult choices to protect other critical services which people want and need, such as education and social care.

However, we are very keenly aware how important roads are to people living, working and running businesses in Renfrewshire and we are strongly committed to doing the best we can with the resources available.