Government provides extra £3m to fix Scarborough's roads

As the county council begins its road repair works, an extra £ 3,285,049 in funding has been allocated to North Yorkshire to assist in the necessary maintanence.

North Yorkshire County Council is set to receive one of the largest pothole payouts in the country as part of a £100m Government boost.

County Councillor Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways, said: “It’s new money that was announced this morning (March 26) by the Department of Transport. The council has its annual budget that it spends on highways in the county.

“In the financial year that ends this week, the council has spent £48m including repairs and resurfacing.

“This is additional money to be spent on pothole repairs which works out to about 6% of our annual spend, but it is very welcome nonetheless.”

“North Yorkshire County Council realises that the five months of winter, a tough winter, as well as five months of constant gritting has had a damaging affect on our highways.

“In North Yorkshire, there are 6,000 miles of highway to maintain. We can’t do much work in the witner months but the repairs have just started.”

It is difficult to estimate how many potholes the funding will be able to repair, but Cllr Mackenzie expects £3m will be able to repair around 10,000 potholes.

Across the country, the funding will help repair almost two million potholes as well as help protect the roads from any future severe weather.

This funding is on top of the £75 million in government money already given to councils from the Pothole Action Fund this year, as well as the additional £46 million boost for highways authorities announced before Christmas.

Between December 2017 and January 2018, the number of reported potholes, emergency repairs and road conditions causing concern doubled from the same period last year.

County Councillor David Jeffels, member of the NYCC’s Scrutiny committee for transport and economy, said: “News of this allocation of nearly £3.5m to primarily repair potholes, is extremely welcome for the Scarborough Council area where myself and other councillors have been pressing for urgently needed repairs to be carried out.

“There have been many complaints from the motoring public about the condition of roads in the villages and the town and hopefully this area will benefit considerably from the Government’s allocation to North Yorkshire.

“The money will enable extensive repair work to be carried out, making our roads safer especially for motor cyclists and cyclists as well as car drivers.

“The suggestion made by some motoring organisations that part of the road fund tax should be earmarked for maintenance of roads will hopefully be pursued at central government level.

“Following the severe weather we have suffered this winter and no doubt in future winters the problem of ongoing investment in our roads is going to be a priority for many years to come.”

This fund is on top of the £6 billion the Government is providing local authorities between 2015 and 2021 to maintain and improve roads.