“We are doing everything possible to keep Lincolnshire moving.”
The county council has announced that a further £10m of funds is being ploughed into the authority’s road maintenance funds.
Speaking during Full Council today (Friday), Leader Martin Hill, OBE, made the announcement that the much-needed additional funds will be used to continue the ongoing works programme around the county.
Cllr Hill said: “In the light of recent announcements relating to the financial health of authorities, I would first assure everyone that our own fiscal position is a healthy one. Indeed, it is down to the very careful and diligent management of our spending that we can attribute this money to the roads’ maintenance fund.
“The news that we can put an extra £10 million, due to underspend returns, into such an important area such as Highways for the people and businesses of Lincolnshire is critically important.
“We face very considerable cost pressures in keeping the 5,500 miles of our roads network useable on a daily basis. What this latest money means, in the real world, is that our hard work and efforts at finding these funds will go on to have a very real impact for those who travel around Lincolnshire.”
The latest funds addition comes after a series of measures already taken by LCC towards the condition of the road network.
With £19 million of extra money previously added to the roads maintenance funding pot as a result of those previous council measures, today’s £10 million now means a total of £29 million has been supplied by LCC for roads maintenance.
Cllr Richard Davies, Executive member for Highways added: “This is extremely good news for our roads maintenance funds and has come about as part of a lot of very hard work across the county council.
“The money will be vital in our continuing daily efforts to ensure that we carry out as many improvements to the roads network as possible.
“But whilst this is a real lift for us as Highways, we must remember that these measures will only go so far in closing down some of the effects felt because of the missing annual funding.
“We are working very hard at getting the most bang for our buck in all aspects of road maintenance and every single penny of this latest additional funding will go a long way to getting more potholes filled, surfaces repaired, and other issues dealt with.
“But this money is not, by far, the whole answer for our missing funds. We once again make the call to Govt that we need our missing millions reinstated in order to be able to restore and improve our county-wide roads network to where they should be.”
Cllr Hill concluded: “LCC has always protected the county highways budget and we have seen that Govt roads funding for Lincolnshire has fluctuated in recent years.”
Facts and figures
• 25% – the size of the cut made by Government to our highways funding
• 5,500 miles – the size of the road network in Lincolnshire we are responsible for
• 24,000 – how many potholes would be filled as part of the £12m funds returning
• £25,000 – how much per mile we can invest in the roads
• £62,000 – how much per mile London councils can invest in their roads
• 660 miles – the amount of Lincolnshire roads in a poor – or very poor – condition
For more live information about our roads network please go to: www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/roadworks