Roads investment delivers improvements across Falkirk network
Investment in Falkirk’s roads is helping to keep the network in a stable condition, with fewer defects being reported by residents and more roads across the area being resurfaced.
The Council invested £8.63 million in roads, footways and street lighting during 2025/26, which included an additional £3.6 million for road maintenance and £330,000 for drainage works.
The additional funding for road maintenance, approved as part of the Council’s 2025/26 budget, helped Roads Services complete 84 resurfacing schemes during the year - more than double the 37 schemes that could have been delivered from the existing roads budget alone. A further 100 schemes are planned during 2026/27.
The latest Road Condition Indicator (RCI), which measures the proportion of roads that should be considered for maintenance, stands at 33.5%, continuing to perform better than the Scottish average of 34%.
Residents are also reporting fewer problems with the road network. Reports through the Council website fell from 7,858 in 2024/25 to 5,943 in 2025/26 - a reduction of around 24%. Within this, reports relating to potholes fell by 5% and blocked drainage by 6%.
Road safety inspection performance also remained high, with 97% of carriageway inspections and 99% of footway inspections completed on time.
Work will continue to build on this progress, including improving response times for road and footway repairs.
Gullies and drainage
Gully cleaning remained at a high level during 2025/26, with 33,750 gullies cleaned - 93% of the network.
This continues the significant increase in gully cleaning achieved over the past two years.
A third year of full-network gully cleaning is underway during 2026/27. This will also help the Council develop a more targeted, risk-based approach to gully cleaning from 2027/28.
Street lighting
Street lighting continued to perform strongly, with 100% of emergency faults made safe or repaired within two hours.
Performance for routine repairs also improved, with 93.2% completed within seven days, up from 90.2% the previous year.
The Council has also completed the conversion of its street lights to LED, reducing electricity consumption and contributing to lower carbon emissions.
Winter maintenance
The Council invested £741,417 in winter maintenance during 2025/26, covering the treatment of roads and footways, salt supplies and weather forecasting.
A relatively mild winter meant less salt was required, while the service continued to provide winter treatment across the road and footway network when conditions required it.
Councillor Paul Garner, Acting Leader of Falkirk Council said:
The additional investment in our roads is delivering results. We’ve been able to resurface significantly more roads, maintain high levels of gully cleaning and we’re seeing fewer problems being reported by residents.
“Maintaining almost 1,000 kilometres of road and more than 1,200 kilometres of footway is a significant job, and continued investment is important if we are to protect the improvements we are making.
“There is always more work to do, but these figures show we are moving in the right direction. We have another 100 resurfacing schemes planned this year and will continue to focus our resources on maintaining and improving the network.
The Council is responsible for maintaining 997.83km of roads, 1,264km of footways, 36,290 gullies and 28,030 street lighting columns. The road network alone has an estimated replacement value of £1.115 billion.
Road maintenance was also identified as the service most highly valued by residents through consultation on the Council’s Financial Strategy 2025-2030.