Almost 80% of the regional roads in Clare have been found to have defects on their surfaces.
A new report from the National Oversight & Audit Commission states that only a fifth of such roads in this county have achieved the highest rating in 2017.
That trend is roughly mirrored in the smaller roads too.
The NOAC’s Pavement Surface Condition Index rates roads around the country on a scale from 1 to 10 – with anything above an eight considered to be a road with no, or just minor, defects.
The report found that 20% of the total regional road kilometres in Clare fell under this category.
The vast majority of roads here – 66 percent – were in the second-highest rating of having some surface defects.
The remainder all fell under the damaged categories with 10 percent deemed to have some localised distress, while one percent were found to have structural distress – the lowest rating given by the NOAC.
With regards to smaller roads, only 12 percent of local primary roads in the county achieved the highest rating.
Only 17 percent of local secondary roads – which are less than four metres in width – were highly rated, and just 9 percent of local tertiary roads, which include cul-de-sacs and other minor routes were in this category, while 28% were in the worst.
