It would take 500 years to repair the crumbling roads and pavements around Aberdeen if current funding levels are maintained.
The Granite City’s potholes have been allocated around £2.2million for repairs over the next year – equating to 60,500 square metres of road replacement and 6,000 square metres of pavement work.
But if this level of funding was to be repeated each year it would take 103 years to surface all the city’s roads and 456 years to complete all pavement work.
The figures were obtained from correspondence seen by the Press and Journal from a senior council officer.
Aberdeen Labour committed to a £10million, five year roads plan in its manifesto – which is likely to be accepted as policy for the current administration.
But Liberal Democrat group leader Ian Yuill, whose party vowed a £5million a year “war” on potholes, said Labours figures actually represented a cut to the budget.
However, he admitted that his plan “was not enough” and called for priorities to be reordered.
He said: “What this shows is that Aberdeen City Council under the Conservative, Labour and Independents over the past five years have not invested enough in Aberdeen’s roads and pavements.
“For the council to be spending such little money would almost be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
“My e-mail inbox is often full of complaints from constituents about the state of the roads and the pavements and they feel it isn’t getting any better.
“The money we put forward would bluntly not be enough either, the council needs to reorganise its priorities to protect our city’s vital transport infrastructure.
“Aberdeen’s roads won’t be fixed in five years or ten years, this needs a very long term plan.”
Ross Grant, the local authority’s transport spokesman, said: “The Liberal Democrats have rightly conceded that they do not have the answer to what is a historic issue.
“While in administration we recognised the importance of ensuring that our roads are as well maintained as possible, which is why we have kept the roads maintenance budget intact since 2012.
“With many competing demands and as Scotland’s lowest funded council we are committed to investing a further £10million over the coming years to bring more of our roads up to a better condition.”
An Aberdeen City Council spokeswoman said: “The timescale of relates to resurfacing roads and pavements, not fixing potholes.
“The roads and pavements resurfacing programme is determined by the budget allocated by committee.”
