A plan to overhaul the province’s roads and bridges is being undermined by provincial spending cuts, according to the New Brunswick Road Builders Association.

The former Liberal government put in place an asset management system in 2007 that assessed and ranked the roads and bridges that were in most urgent need of repair.

The system assumed the provincial government would spend more than $100 million a year for about six years to upgrade the entire infrastructure network.

But, the Progressive Conservative government chopped spending for infrastructure projects to $24 million this year in its attempt to trim the provincial deficit.

Peter Flower, the president of the New Brunswick Road Builders Association, said the reduced spending undermines the whole point of the asset management plan.

And he said roads and bridges that are crumbling now will only get more expensive to fix in the future.

Transportation Minister Claude Williams said the provincial government cannot afford to spend $100 million annually on capital projects. (CBC)

"The bottom line is, the longer you ignore a piece of infrastructure, the longer it takes to bring it back to a proper standard,” he said.

Transportation Minister Claude Williams said he would like to spend at least three times as much as his budget currently allows, but the provincial government cannot afford it right now.

"They are absolutely right, we should invest more in the road infrastructure in New Brunswick, but the situation as we know is the financial reality,” he said.

Williams said the asset management system is still working because the highest priority roads and bridges are being identified and fixed.

Finance Minister Blaine Higgs released a $948-million capital spending plan last December, but the majority of those funds were to complete existing capital projects and the Route 1 highway project.

The finance minister set aside $24 million for new capital projects, which was down from $42 million in the previous year.

The Alward government is moving toward a multi-year capital spending plan. The finance minister said the provincial government plans to spend $438 million and $487 million in the next two capital budgets, respectively.