Blast over pothole 'secrecy' of Renfrewshire

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Secretive council mandarins are refusing to reveal how much it will cost to repair Renfrewshire’s crumbling road network.Almost all councils in Scotland admitted how much their repair bill will be, a total of £1.7 billion.Now Scottish Labour Councillor Alison Ann-Dowling has called on the SNP run Renfrewshire Council to come clean.Renfrewshire Council refused a Freedom of Information request from Scottish Labour.Cllr Alison Ann-Dowling, who represents Houston, Crosslee and Linwood and her colleague Councillor Colin McCulloch for Bridge of Weir, Bishopton and Langbank recently passed a motion at Renfrewshire Council calling for a fresh strategy to improve the state of local roads and pavements.Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire.

Sign up to our newsletters here.Councillor Ann-Dowling said: “Many people know Renfrewshire’s roads are in a terrible state after years of SNP neglect.“But it is shocking the Council have failed to publish the true extent of their failure.“It’s not acceptable for people not to know how much is needed to repair the roads - the SNP administration should come clean and tell us what the road repair backlog is.“Either the SNP won’t tell people how badly they have managed our roads or they simply don’t know.“Which is it?”The councillor is calling for a new strategy for Renfrewshire’s roads and more cash to go into proper re-surfacing rather than pothole repair.East Renfrewshire, which has a much smaller road network, has £25 million of repairs outstanding.Renfrewshire Council has been asked to comment.Here are the figures from the authorities that did come clean:Falkirk £42,337,000 West Lothian £31,067,000 Shetland Islands £33,400,000 North Ayrshire £34,807,000 Midlothian £19,500,0