The roads team at Dumfries and Galloway Council is to be given a boost over the next two years after it was agreed to employ 10 more workers.
Councillors on the finance committee on Tuesday backed a request to spend an additional £800,000 to meet the cost of extra staff until March, 2024.
With the state of the roads one of the biggest complaints from residents across the region, councillors unanimously welcomed the move to inject more resources into the struggling service.
Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Abbey Councillor Davie Stitt asked: “Are the other 10 roads operatives going to be shared between the four regions?”
Harry Hay, the interim head of roads and infrastructure, responded: “Yes, absolutely. We’ll ensure that all the appointments reflect the needs of the wider regions. So, it’ll be shared equitably across Dumfries and Galloway.”
Council chiefs insist that the extra manpower will be crucial in supporting “an increased road maintenance programme” while some of the cash may also be put to use in drafting in help from contractors at times when the service is stretched.
The proposal was put forward following ongoing discussions between joint trade unions and local authority officials concerning the lack of resources and the health and safety of roads staff.
Annandale North Councillor Ian Carruthers called for the temporary job contracts to be extended to two years saying: “I think that a 15-month contract is insufficient. We’ll find that difficult to attract members of staff.”
Mr Hay said: “The challenge we’ve got is the timescale. We absolutely want to hit the ground running with this and what we tried to do was ensure that there are two winter periods covered by this – because this would take us up to the end of March, 2024.
“It’s recognised that this is not a sustainable model moving forward. In parallel to that, I want to ensure members that there’s a lot of work to do to ensure that the roads and infrastructure service moving forward is sustainable and delivers on the ambitions the council has got for that particular service.”
A report tabled at the meeting stated: “In addition to improving the resilience of the roads winter service, the employment of these additional operational staff will increase the volume of road repair activity that the service is able to deliver across both the winter period and, importantly, into the spring and summer periods when the damage caused to road and footpath surfaces through freeze/thaw action over the winter results in increased break-up of the surfaces.
“The overall staffing resource will be deployed in a flexible manner to respond to prevailing weather conditions/other priorities as requirements dictate.”
