City’s roads problem is as deep as the worst pothole

The JCB Pothole Pro has not been used on 190 days since the council took delivery of it in March 2023

The irony knows no bounds as it doesn’t feel any better as I walk around, endure rattling bus journeys or crunch my way through rutted and potholed surfaces in the car.

The main claim is an extra £12.5 million of capital funding but this has been normal for the past few years, so you won’t notice a huge change, yet the scale of the problem is as deep as the worst pothole. I can illustrate this easily with some examples from my ward and the adjacent neighbourhood where I live.

The first issue is the lack of action despite raised expectations. Talking to Craigentinny residents last weekend I was reminded that we were told in 2022 that the badly rutted road surface on Vandeleur Avenue was listed for repair in 2025. However, it is no longer on the list this year despite small side streets in better condition being repaired in the meantime.

Then there is the disruption works cause. Residents in Lochend Road have just had their pavements resurfaced. I am sure they are delighted but it took six months and was hugely disruptive for bus services for my Craigentinny and Lochend constituents. The diasruption added to the delays their buses already face travelling through Duke Street post tram and LTN installation in Leith. Surely, the council can work faster and likely reduce the contractor costs of this type of work.

There’s also the fabled JCB “pothole killer” championed by the council. We now find from a consumer journalist’s Freedom of Information request it has been idle for 190 of the days it’s been hired for due to a lack of trained staff. Hardly value for money.

On the upside, the list of repairs for the coming year includes a full resurface of Restalrig Road in my ward – something I’ve requested for a while. The state of it is like a third world track but maybe if remedial work had been done earlier it might not have cost so much. It’s also likely to be highly disruptive, closing a main bus route.

We Conservatives have consistently called for more and better spending to repair our legacy of poor pavements and roads. For many years we have regularly proposed budgets with more funding in this area than any other party. But it’s not just about money, it’s about how you spend it. We still have a lot of persuading to do to achieve better roads for residents.

Iain Whyte is Conservative councillor for Craigentinny Duddingston Ward and leader of the Conservative group on Edinburgh City Council