120 Miles Of Poor Roads In Wrexham – Second Worst In Wales

A Welsh Government report says 120 miles or 194 kilometres of Wrexham’s road network is ‘in poor overall condition’.

According to the annual Welsh Government ‘Length & Condition of Roads in Wales‘ report published today says Flintshire’s roads are the best in Wales when it comes to condition, while Wrexham has the second highest amount of road in need of attention.

The report looks at the proportion of the road network within each local authority in need of further investigation due to being in poor condition, it says overall last year 12.8 per cent of the Wales motorway network and 14.3 per cent of the trunk road network required close monitoring of structural condition compared with 11.2 per cent and 12.8 per cent respectively in 2012.

During 2013-14 Powys had the highest proportion of road network in need of further investigation due to its condition, 20 per cent, followed by Wrexham at 16.7% up 2% on the previous year, while Flintshire came bottom (which is good) of the table with just 4.3% a near 1% improvement on the previous year.

Deeside.com commented: “Any merger of the Flintshire and Wrexham councils, which as we know has been mooted by the Welsh Government, would be of huge benefit to Wrexham road users it seems with Flintshire being able to bring a high level of road maintenance expertise to a potential merged council table.”

The figures represent the percentage of the road network length that is equal to or above the RED threshold; explained in the report as ‘in poor overall condition’:

Information on the structural condition of major roads is usually collected by Deflectograph Surveys which is an automated technique for measuring the deflection of a road surface under a standard load.

The information is based on the performance indicator data for local authorities in Wales, compiled by the Local Government Data Unit Wales, together with administrative data compiled for the management of the trunk road and principal road networks in Wales.

In a recent Wrexham Council consultation proposed cuts of £107,000 to in planned highways maintenance (report here) was binned after the public said no. Similarly the winter budget has also been maintained (report here).

For pub quiz fans there is one stat in the document that could help you, the total road length in Wales in 2014 was 34,459 kilometres, and Wrexham has 1,163 kilometers.

(A version of this article was first published on Deeside.com , which for anyone interested in Flintshire is well worth reading & subscribing to via its various social outlets!)