In 2023, the UK experienced its warmest June on record, yet the following month, Northern Ireland and northwest England experienced the wettest July on record and the 6th wettest on record for the UK as a whole.
The cost of flooding to the UK is approximately £1.4 billion per year despite spending on building and maintaining flood defences. Further afield, the flooding in the Valencia region of Spain in October 2024 caused widespread devastation and the loss of over 200 lives. Insurance claims for the damage are expected to exceed £3.5 billion whilst the Spanish government has announced a first recovery package valued at up to €10.6 billion.
Events such as this could increase significantly in the future under high emissions scenarios. The financial burden of extreme weather on infrastructure owners and local authorities is mounting, highlighting the urgent need for cost-effective road resilience strategies.
Why Road Resilience Matters
Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity, putting immense pressure on the UK’s road network. From flooding and erosion to heat-induced surface damage, councils must balance short-term repair costs with long-term resilience investments. It is not merely confined to the direct costs of repairing damaged roads and infrastructure, but also indirect costs such as delayed deliveries, lost revenue from inaccessible shops and businesses and potentially lengthy diversions.
Cost vs. Long-Term Savings: Investing in Resilience Now
UK council road maintenance budgets are under immense pressure, with many competing demands and uncertainty around long-term funding from one year to the next. As such, they often tend to address the symptoms, such as filling in potholes, rather than the root cause of the problem.
Depending on the data source used, research shows that for every £1 spent on climate adaptation for roads, savings of between £4 and £6 are realised compared to the cost of reactive repairs and reconstruction. Investing in durable, climate-resistant roads today reduces disruptions, financial strain, and long-term liabilities. This kind of sustainable road investment helps councils future-proof their infrastructure while achieving greater economic efficiency.
However, it’s one thing to recognise that proactive climate resilience has a high benefit-cost ratio, yet it’s quite another to implement appropriate strategies without the knowledge and resources to do so. At a more fundamental level, the BCR is somewhat irrelevant if there’s no money.
So, what can be done? Here are a few suggestions.
Multi-Year Ring-Fenced Funding Settlements
The current maintenance backlog for local road repairs is £17 billion and one in every six miles of roads has less than five years’ structural strength remaining. Longer term certainty of funding, as is the case for strategic roads and railways will give councils the tools to fund at least some carriageway improvements and repairs to prevent potholes forming in the first place, rather than a focus on repairs which in some cases last only weeks or months.
Maple Consulting worked on the ICARUS project funded by CEDR, focusing on climate adaptation for roads and infrastructure resilience. A selection of resources is available on the project website, including climate adaptation options, tools for making the case for adaptation and a decision tree for implementing climate change adaptation . Whilst the focus of the project was on strategic roads, the resources can be applied to local councils.
Using Technology
Advances in technology and AI offer significant opportunities for councils to monitor their highway network and identify and address minor issues before they escalate.
Initiatives such as the 2020-21 ADEPT Live Labs trial in Kent where front-facing cameras and telemetry sensors on local buses and KCC pool cars built up a picture of defects and rate of degradation. The system showed potential cost savings at the time, and with the rapid advancements in both sensor technologies, but particularly in AI offers significant potential in the future.
Permeable Road Surfaces for Flood Resilience
Flooding is one of the biggest causes of damage to road infrastructure, causing erosion, potholes and structural damage. Permeable pavements are a proven flood-resistant road solution, allowing water to drain naturally and reducing standing water, erosion, and pothole formation.
Permeable paving is more expensive than standard treatments, at the construction stage at least, but potentially offers lifetime savings through the prevention of pothole formation and longer pavement life. Whilst it may be more applicable to new construction, it can be retrofitted onto existing pavements and can be a very effective tool alongside SUDS as part of a larger flood management system.
Temperature-Resistant Road Materials
Heat-resistant road materials are crucial in protecting surfaces from deformation during increasingly hot UK summers. Many traditional asphalt roads soften in extreme heat, leading to deformation and safety hazards.
Modified asphalts, often incorporating polymer-modified bitumen, are designed to resist deformation, rutting, and softening under elevated temperatures. The addition of polymers improves elasticity and stiffness, helping pavements maintain structural integrity during heat waves or prolonged warm periods. These materials are widely available in the UK and increasingly specified for roads experiencing heavier traffic loads or regions anticipating more extreme climate conditions.
Other alternatives include lighter-coloured road surfaces to increase the albedo effect and reflect heat, which can be effective in reducing the urban heat island effect. Concrete alternatives also offer increased resilience to heat and are typically light coloured, but concrete road surfaces tend to be noisier than asphalt alternatives and are generally not specified.
The Future
Several UK councils (Oxfordshire, Kent, Staffordshire and Essex) have trialled the use of Gipave, a polymetric binder containing graphene, which is reported to reduce whole life costs by 32% despite a higher upfront cost due to extended road life.
Other councils have responded to the risk of flooding, such as Nottingham City Council, which is integrating green-blue infrastructure including retrofit SuDS and permeable pavements. Cardiff City Council has installed a series of retrofit rain gardens across the city to attenuate road run-off and prevent surface flooding.
Where to Start?
To begin implementing cost-effective road resilience, councils should:
- Assess Vulnerabilities – Conduct climate risk assessments on existing infrastructure.
- Prioritise Key Areas – Identify roads most at risk of flooding, heat damage, or erosion.
- Explore Funding Options – Investigate public and private funding options.
- Implement Phased Upgrades – Start with high-risk areas and expand based on available budgets.
The current UK approach for maintenance of local roads needs new solutions, new technologies and new thinking to go beyond reactive maintenance and ongoing pothole repairs.
Planning Your Council’s Climate Adaptation Strategy?
If you’re planning your council’s climate adaptation strategy or exploring climate adaptation for roads, Maple Consulting can help.
📧 Email Martin at [email protected] to start the conversation.
Further Reading:
Weathering the Storm: Enhancing Infrastructure Resilience in the UK
ICARUS Project: https://icarus.project.cedr.eu/
