More than 60 miles of Gloucestershire roads have been resurfaced and 40,000 highway safety defects fixed since the Liberal Democrats took the helm at Shire Hall.

These figures were aired at Gloucestershire County Council’s Cabinet meeting last week as council chiefs approved their “stronger future, built together’ strategy from 2025 to 2029.

However, highways maintenance Cabinet member Joe Harris (LD, Cirencester Park) said the authority has to do more to improve its communications with residents about the disruptive roadworks.

He said the plan is the beginning of the process and they have to get it right over the next four years.

“It’s going to be a lot of work for us as members, even more work for our colleagues who are having to deliver all this,” he said.

“We promised to fix our roads and that is exactly what we are doing as an administration.

“Since we came to administration we have resurfaced over 60 roads across the county.

“That’s an amazing achievement, it’s a great feat but we’ve got more to do.

“Clearly, we are going into the winter months so where possible we will do as much resurfacing as possible but I think that is phenomenal.

“That is miles and miles of roads that have been resurfaced.

“We’ve also fixed over 40,000 safety defects in that time. This is a highways department that is working incredibly hard and is delivering on some of the priorities that we are setting them.”

He said the council has a challenge in balancing its budget and meeting their manifesto commitments.

Cllr Harris said they want to fix the county’s roads with “full resurfacing”.

“Resurfacing is the best way to fix our roads,” he said.

“We also need to improve communication and engagement.

“We’ve got lots of roadworks going on around the county at the minute.

“I think a lot of the strife we get sometimes as an administration is perhaps because we haven’t been as robust or as proactive on the communications as we could be.

“Being proactive with our communications but also being understanding when people raise concerns.

“Whether that’s a resurfacing scheme and the local businesses are worried about how they are going to access their business or whether that’s Mrs Goggins reporting a pothole in our street.

“We need to be consistent, we need to be open and compassionate.

“We live in one of the most beautiful counties in the country, if not in Europe, and I think it’s important it looks that way,” he said.

“All too often you drive into towns maybe on the local ringroad or you are driving down a street, there’s grass verges up to here, weeds growing out of the kerb channel, signs which look like they’ve been shot.

“We want tidier streets in that public realm, and that is a key commitment. We want to make sure Gloucestershire is beautiful again.”

He also wants to ensure there is a real focus on making sure repairs done by contractors are to a high standard.