To ask the Minister for Infrastructure (i) to outline the criteria for resurfacing roads; (ii) how his Department determines whether a road meets this criteria; and (iii) how readily a road requiring resurfacing may move up a priority list if its condition suddenly deteriorates.

Under Article 8 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993, my Department has a statutory duty to maintain all public roads in a safe and serviceable condition and to seek to fulfil this duty, an annual programme of resurfacing and reconstruction works is undertaken, the extent of which is dictated by the availability of funding.

On trunk roads, information is routinely gathered and analysed from a variety of specialist machine surveys and visual inspections and this information is used in order to help inform decisions regarding our annual maintenance programmes. On other roads Divisional programmes are prepared on the basis of a number of data factors including road usage and general surface condition surveys as well as information from maintenance inspections, public enquiries and public liability claims.

Programmes are subject to continual review and take into account a wide range of factors such as worsening condition of other roads, planned works by utilities, additional in year funding, contractor capacity etc.

In the absence of a fully funded allocation for the structural maintenance programme, my Department aims to prioritise decisions and interventions on the basis of the indicators outlined above as well as on the professional engineering judgements of local engineers. Those schemes not included in a particular year’s programme as result of funding constraints will routinely be considered in future years’ programmes.