By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
A row has broken out over the “bombed” condition of some of Gloucestershire’s roads as Shire Hall chiefs aim to secure a new £192m long-term resurfacing contractor next year.
Gloucestershire County Council’s new Liberal Democrat leadership has agreed this week to start the search for a contractor to carry out major road resurfacing.
County Highways’ current carriageway resurfacing contract with Tarmac will end on March 31, 2026.
And the new eight year contract is expected to be worth up to £192m and would begin from next April. Under the new plans, the County Council will launch a process to appoint a specialist contractor to resurface roads across Gloucestershire.
The initial contract will run for four years, with an option to extend by another four years but only if performance targets are met.
The Lib Dems, having said after winning the election that there is not enough money to fix the roads, say this marks the first major steps by their administration to deliver on their pledge to fix the county’s roads.
Highways maintenance cabinet member Joe Harris (LD, Cirencester Park) blasted the Conservatives who previously run the authority of “being asleep at the wheel” and having left the county’s roads in a poor state during the cabinet meeting on July 23.
But former council leader Stephen Davies (C, Hardwicke and Severn) has hit back at the comments which he sees as “more Lib Dem gloss and nonsense” who he claims “falsely told the electorate they could wave some magic wand and fix the roads”.
The Tory administration at Shire Hall made the changes to the contract which led to the doubling of the number potholes being fixed, and introduced new equipment along with the ‘Fix my streets’ reporting services, he said.
But Cllr Harris said people in Gloucestershire are “rightly fed up with potholes, poor road surfaces and quick fixes that don’t last and we are too”.
“I’ve lived here my whole life and seen first-hand the state of some local roads which have got worse and worse over the years,” he said.
“While some progress is being made it struck me that some roads look like they’ve been bombed because they are in such bad condition!
“The Lib Dems pledged to fix our roads and we’re determined to make Gloucestershire roads great again. This new contract will give us the long-term stability, better value and higher standards we need to fix our roads properly.
“It’s one of the most important promises we made at the election in May and we’re getting on with the job.
“If the contractor we choose does a great job then we’ll extend the contract, if not then they’ll be fired.”
As part of the council’s climate goals, bidders will be required to show how they will reduce emissions and make use of greener materials and methods to help protect Gloucestershire’s natural landscape.
“Local job creation, apprenticeships and carbon cutting will form a key part of the contract scoring process.
“Council finances are under real pressure because of Government funding cuts and we’ll be pushing the Government hard for more funding so we can carry out many more repairs across Gloucestershire.
“But this decision shows we’re serious about making the most of the money we do have and getting on with the job of fixing our roads.”
Cllr Davies said the real test will come when the new budget is published and the public will see if the Lib Dems are truly committed to spending money on repairing roads at the rate his Conservative administration did.
“Sadly this is more Liberal Democrat gloss and nonsense,” he said.
“We made the changes to the contract that resulted in us doubling the number of potholes fixed, we introduced the new equipment that is achieving this, and we introduced ‘Fix my streets’.
“We were honest enough to accept that the challenge was always financial and we didn’t falsely tell the electorate we could wave some magic wand and fix the roads, which the Liberal Democrats did.
“The real test will come when the new budget is published and we see if this administration is committed to continue to spend at the rate we did, ie an additional £100m.”
The new contract will replace the existing arrangement with Tarmac for the provision of carriageway resurfacing on March 31, 2026.
Procurement will begin in November 2025, with the new contractor in place by April 2026.