The end of the road? Local investment in road safety in England

This report looks at local investment in roads and road safety within the context of reductions in government spending. It hopes to open up a debate on local performance, spending decisions and local priorities. Although it is too early to understand the impact of government cuts on road safety, we hope this report begins to track how investment is affected.

To produce this report information was collated and analysed from:

• In-depth spending figures given by English local authorities
• Financial statistics from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
• Road casualty and road condition information from the Department for Transport (DfT)
• Results from an IAM opinion poll on road safety investment (2,434 responses)

The research shows that over half of English councils cut their spending on road safety and traffic management by more than 10%. Of the 152 councils contacted, 81 replied.

Spending on road safety saw large variations. London’s Camden Council cut road safety spending by more than 70% (£4 million), despite the fact that road casualties have increased by 10.6% there since 2006. More than 100 people were killed or seriously injured on Camden’s roads in 2010. At the same time, neighbouring Islington Council increased funding for road safety and traffic management by £134,000.

Spending on roads also varied. 30 councils (37%) cut spending on road maintenance by more than 10%, but generally, road maintenance fared well with an overall increase of 0.37%. For example, Northumberland Council cut road maintenance by 63% while Blackpool Council increased it by 34%.