The cost to business of the state of UK roads

Potholes aren’t just a sign of a crumbling road network, they are a potential cost crater  to your business in terms of repair and lost sales.

The deteriorating state of the nation’s roads is something none of us can escape, whether business owners or everyday motorists – and the situation has been getting steadily worse over recent years due to under-investment by successive governments.

One of the central calls to action in the RAC’s 2014 Report on Motoring was for the Government to address this issue.

Estimates by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) suggest an investment of £12bn is required in England alone to address the backlog and bring local road networks back to a state that means they are fit for purpose.

In 2014 the RAC also teamed up with Street Repairs to create a smartphone app to report a pothole.  This enables all road users to instantly report street defects direct to the responsible authority with accurate location, details and even photographs.

Crumbling road surfaces and potholes that pock-mark the country’s road network are responsible for a significant number of vehicles being off the road due to the damage they cause.

This is costly and inconvenient for the private motorist but for the business owner, it can have a serious impact on their operation. Flooding increases the risk further because potholes are filled with water and road users drive into them inadvertently as they are not visible.

Last spring, one particular pothole under water resulted in 11 separate incidents of damage to vehicles in a single morning before the local authority took emergency action.

Research carried out among SME owners by RAC Business in January 2015, suggests the cost to businesses of a single vehicle being off the road is up to £250 a day. If you rely on four or five vehicles to run your business, having just one off the road puts a serious dent in your operations.

That is why we think it is crucial that those responsible for both local and strategic roads should adopt an approach which fixes defects ’once only’ by addressing the underlying cause and eradicating the repetitive ‘patching up’ seen in recent years.

Just before Christmas, the Government outlined how £6bn would be made available between now and 2020/21 to improve the condition of local roads. Any funding that is properly targeted is to be welcomed, but we question whether this really goes far enough in the context of the backlog of £12 billion in England as reported by the AIA.

Even taking into account existing investment by Government since 2010, the associated £10bn is spread over a 10 year period and is still a long way short of what is required to return local roads to a state that is fit for purpose.

With an election less than six months away, all of the political parties need to recognise the importance of our roads to the economy.

Well maintained roads enable big and small companies alike to get on with running their businesses without incurring the costs and disruption arising from damage due to potholes.