Lack of spending on roads and pathways is a problem that is "coming home to roost", an all-party committee of MPs said today.

A report by the transport select committee said successive governments had failed to invest sufficient funds to adequately maintain the network.

"Like the railways, the problems of under-investment are coming home to roost. One third of all funding is spent on temporary patch and mend maintenance. Tens of millions of pounds are spent every year in compensation to people injured as a result."

The MPs said that, to its credit, the government had set out to eliminate the backlog of road maintenance by 2011 and had already provided extra money to the highways agency to maintain its network properly. This extra money provided since the start of the 10-year plan in 2001, had enabled the department to halt the deterioration in local road surface condition.

But the report added: "The current programme concentrates on the quality of the road surface. If the funding is to deliver more than a 'makeover' the government must widen its policy to ensure that the roads are safe, well lit and long lasting."

"For their part, local authorities must improve their performance if the most is to be made of the extra money. The roads budget must not be used as a regular slush fund for other local services."

The transport committee warned that the ability of local councils to tackle the maintenance backlog was curbed by the enormous volume of road works carried out by private utility companies. Some roads seem to be made up more of patches than original road, they said, noting also that there was insufficient coordination and cooperation between utilities and local authorities.

The government is developing new legislation to give local authorities more powers to coordinate these works and minimise delays. But the MPs called on the government to make the existing system work before bringing in any new systems.

There is also criticism of the proposed "congestion tsars" who would be responsible for keeping traffic moving.

The idea is to bring together all of the other elements that can combine to cause delays in a city including road maintenance, traffic signal control, accidents and parking.

The potential complexity of such a role is "staggering," said the report. "We are not sure where the expertise exists to manage all of these and the government has yet to demonstrate the practical benefits that would be achieved by combining all of these roles." "The task of managing our city streets risks being made more complicated by adding a further layer of bureaucracy. The idea of tasking someone with the job of keeping traffic moving may sound politically appealing, but it runs the risk of compromising safety and environmental objectives and ignoring the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and indeed, the needs of utility customers - every driver also falls into at least one of these categories."