Lincolnshire’s Reform leaders say they won’t back a policy idea to pull tarmac up on unmanageable roads.
Lincolnshire County Council’s highways officers had previously suggested it as a way to cut costs while dealing with problems on the rest of the road network, writes Local Democracy Reporter Jamie Waller.
But senior councillors have refused to adopt it at an Executive meeting on Wednesday (April 8), calling it a “backwards measure” and “managed decline”.
The policy – officially known as “unmetalling” – could have seen some of the poorest, least-used roads downgraded, such as remote highways which only lead to one house.
Reform Leader Councillor Sean Matthews praised the “out of the box thinking” from highway officers, but said that the administration couldn’t support it.
Councillor Danny Brookes told the meeting: “It would be admitting the council can’t keep up and is starting to retreat. Is that the message we want to send?
“It’s not improvement or modernisation – it would be a managed decline. If we go down this road, we won’t win back public confidence.”
Councillor Natalie Oliver said the policy “feels like a backwards measure. We should be about innovation and efficiency, and this doesn’t in any way provide that.”
The practice was used sporadically under the previous Conservative administration, with 72 instances of it happening since 1999.
Jonathan Evans, the head of highways, said it had been proposed as a “bolder strategy” to improve the overall quality of roads across Lincolnshire.
He previously said: “With the cost and burden to maintain larger road networks, something has to give, and we want to explore this option.”
It has been taken out of the strategy, which outlines how Lincolnshire roads will be managed for the next three years.
There are around 390km of unmetalled roads in the county, out of a total network of over 9000km.
