“Quality assurance officers” to inspect Cheshire East road repairs

New “quality assurance officers” are to be used by Cheshire East Council to inspect work carried out on the borough’s roads.

The authority said it aims to improve the quality of highways repairs after mounting criticism about the state of the area’s roads.

Many patch repairs to potholes only last a few weeks, and the backlog of repairs is already around £100 million.

But the council has recently approved a new budget of £19 million capital investment in planned highways maintenance over the next three years.

Cllr Craig Browne, chair of the council’s highways and transport committee, said: “The vast majority of our residents understand that budgets are tight.

“However, they are also frustrated when they see the deterioration in the condition of the highway.

“I am pleased that this investment in quality assurance will go some way towards addressing that.

“The council has the in-house skills to work with our contractor to ensure we improve performance, deliver high-quality work and demonstrate we are a council that listens to residents’ concerns and acts on them.”

Cllr Laura Crane, vice-chair of the council’s highways and transport committee, said: “Whilst the level of funding provided by central government is simply inadequate to meet the maintenance needs of Cheshire East’s roads and prevent them deteriorating further, we are increasing that level of investment by £19m over the next three years.

“This additional investment is having to be funded by borrowing, which although necessary in the short term, isn’t a sustainable position in the long term.

“The only real positive from this settlement is that we at least have funding certainty for the next three years so can better plan ahead, looking at how we can use the financial surety to generate even greater value for money.

“But the frozen level of government funding does not take into account inflation, which is running year on year at a 30-year high – so we are looking in real-terms at a cut in government funding each year.”

The authority says it will increase spending on highways inspections, responding to emergencies, hedge/tree maintenance and managing flood risk, including gully emptying.

Cllr Browne added: “We are a large semi-rural authority with a complex and extensive highways network.

“Assessment by our strategic highways team shows that we need to invest close to £30m each year to keep the roads in their current state and this level of funding has not been achieved for many years.

“This means that we are now facing a backlog of repair works totalling well over £100m, which remains unfunded.”

The council is to initially recruit one quality assurance officer. The council’s head of highways also has a newly-expanded quality assurance role.