CEREDIGION’S road network is the second worst in Wales despite the condition of A and B roads having “improved significantly”.

A report into the road network across the county found that, while there had been improvements in the condition of roads - mainly A and B roads - since 2011, an assessment found that the county was still ranked 21st out of the 22 local authorities in 2015/16, the same ranking achieved in 2011/12, with a warning that to bring C class roads up to scratch would cost around £5m.

Ceredigion council’s highways asset management plan said that while the council had used funding from the Local Government Borrowing Initiative to fund improvements to A and B roads, the large network of C roads meant there had been little overall improvement in the THS/012 ranking for the county’s road.

The plan says: “The condition of the A and B road network has improved significantly since 2011 through the £4.6m of Local Government Borrowing Initiative investment.

“This did not, however, result in any appreciable improvement in KPI THS/012 owing to the condition and relatively large length of C class roads in comparison to the A and B road network.

“To put this into context, the LGBI investment resulted in the resurfacing of about 69 kilometres of A and B class roads.

“This length represents only 3.2 per cent of the county road network.”

The plan warns that to improve the condition of Ceredigion’s C roads enough to be ranked in the top third of authorities in Wales would cost about £5m.

See this week’s south editions for the full story, in shops and online on Wednesday