Friday January 30th 2026
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
A plea has been issued to “get real” after it emerged that more than £135m is needed to repair all roads and bridges across the Scottish Borders.
The current estimated cost of backlog maintenance to repair all adopted roads in the region is £123.2m with the cost of repairs needed to its bridges standing at £12m, it has emerged.
In that context the current 2025/26 SBC budget for repair works on roads and bridges stands at just £7m.
The figures emerged via an open question from Liberal Democrat Tweeddale West councillor Drummond Begg at a meeting of the full council this week.
The question was posed to SBC’s executive member for Roads and Public Space Development, Councillor John Greenwell.
Mr Begg said: “Does the executive member agree with me that we need to get real and do far more to repair our deteriorating road surfaces?
“I wonder if you could ask through COSLA (the voice of Local Government) the same question of all councils, so that we can have a sense of what the backlog looks like for our roads, not only across the Borders but also across Scotland because this is just not going to work as a plan going forward over the next decade if we continue to under-fund in this way.”
Responding, Mr Greenwell said: “I totally agree with that Councillor Begg and I believe that our chief officer would also agree with that.
“I will ask our Roads chief officer if he can gather that information and spread it around all members.”
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