No.126 Establishment of “Infrastructure Maintenance Municipal Mayors Conference”

In Japan, the development of social capital was concentrated during the period of high economic growth, and in recent years, infrastructure such as roads, bridges, tunnels, and sewers has been aging at an accelerating pace, and the occurrence of accidents and disasters due to this has become a social problem. It has turned into. In December 2012, a concrete ceiling panel fell in the Sasago Tunnel on the Chuo Expressway, resulting in a tragic accident in which many people were caught and died.
This led to legal revisions and a shift in awareness from corrective maintenance to preventive maintenance.
Infrastructure is indispensable for our daily lives and economic activities, and at the same time, the aging of infrastructure can also affect human lives, so proper maintenance is extremely important.

In January 2013, the national government launched the ``Conference on Measures to Countermeasures for Aging Social Infrastructure,'' which began cross-sectional discussions among related ministries and agencies, and the ``National Council on Infrastructure Maintenance'' was established in 2016 with the participation of industry, government, academia, and citizens who agree with the purpose. Established in November.
Since its establishment, the National Assembly has been active in a variety of fields, including the development of innovative maintenance technologies, support for local governments that manage infrastructure, training of engineers, requests for securing financial resources, and raising awareness among citizens.
We, local governments, play a part in the responsibility of infrastructure development. However, up until now, the government has been busy building and expanding new infrastructure in order to meet the ever-increasing administrative demands, and the reality is that maintenance has not been available. Furthermore, in the era of the end of the period of high economic growth, the collapse of the bubble economy, and administrative reform, major challenges are occurring, such as budget constraints, a shortage of technical staff, and difficulties in passing on know-how.

Therefore, in order to support the discussions at the National Conference, to work in coordination with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and other relevant ministries and agencies, and to work together to solve problems, it was decided to establish the "Infrastructure Maintenance City, Ward, Town and Village Mayors' Conference," whose members will be made up of mayors of cities, wards, towns and villages who have a strong interest in infrastructure maintenance.
I was appointed as the block manager for the Kanto block out of the nine blocks nationwide. At the 2021 National Infrastructure Maintenance Conference General Assembly held at Tokyo Big Sight on December 8 last year, I announced the policy for the establishment of the City, Ward, Town and Village Mayors Conference, and after the preparations, we were able to hold the establishment ceremony on April 28 this year.
We are pleased to have the participation of 690 mayors (as of March 31), which is approximately 40% of the nation's total 1,741 cities, towns, and villages. I have been humbly appointed to serve as the national representative secretary along with the Kanto block secretary.

Going forward, we will work in cooperation with the National Conference and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to encourage exchanges of opinions between local government leaders, strongly promote top-down infrastructure maintenance, and raise awareness of the importance of maintenance.