Council plan to repair Glasgow’s worst pavements immediately

The footpaths in the city which have “major or structural deterioration” measure 92 kilometres, according to council minutes.

A councillor amendment, which was approved, has asked the chief executive to prepare “information on where the 2.9 per cent of worst footways are, and plans to immediately bring these footways up to expected minimum standard and maintain them as such.”

It was one of a series of instructions from politicians so they can consider how best to roll out a plan to “tackle the significant damage to our city’s roads and pavements.”

Council boss Annemarie O’Donnell has also been tasked with finding out how much it will cost to repair “ALL of the city’s identified road and pavement defects” so eventually only new faults need to be fixed.

Among a list of tasks, she was also asked to assess potential measures to divert heavy goods vehicles away from residential streets including known ‘rat runs.’

The top officer was also asked for an assessment to be carried out looking at the impact of utility and other types of third party work on the infrastructure and how to ensure they rectify any damage.

The amendment said: “This council expresses its view that the city’s residents deserve to have good quality infrastructure to allow them to move about the city in an efficient manner. It is self-evident that if we are to encourage more of our citizens to take up active travel options that we require to provide the infrastructure to allow this to be done safely and that at its most basic level this will require having roads and footways in good condition.”

The amendment from former councillors Anna Richardson, SNP, and Allan Young, Greens, also requested an “assessment of the potential to link up a programme of significant road and footway repairs with carrying out other works such as drainage repair or upgrades or traffic changes.”

The chief executive was also asked to write to finance secretary Kate Forbes providing her with an up-to-date estimate of the cost to repair Glasgow’s roads and footways and request the Scottish Government to take this into consideration when handing out the city’s funding in future.

All the work should be presented to the council in about six months time. It was agreed at a council meeting in March.

The council’s most recent Roads Infrastructure Status and Options report stated that bringing roads up to the ‘best condition in over a decade’ would cost £15.5 million annually over five years. A freedom of information request revealed Glasgow has an “outstanding bill to repair its known road and footway repairs of £96 million” according to the council minutes.

The minutes were accepted at last week’s full council meeting.