Cash for councils to fill potholes

Motorists and cyclists are set to benefit after the Government today (Thursday 7 April 2016) announced how £50 million of funding will repair nearly one million potholes across the country over the next 12 months.

Fifteen councils in South West will receive a share of £8.4 million, helping to remove around 159,000 potholes from local roads during this financial year, with Devon County Council receiving £1.9 million to fill around 37,000 potholes.

The funding has been made available as part of the £250 million Pothole Action Fund included in last month’s Budget, which will fix over four million potholes by 2020/21.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said: “I know how important well-maintained roads are to people across the South West. Almost every journey starts and ends on a local road, so the government is giving councils in the South West £8.4 million specifically to tackle the blight of potholes in their area.

“This is just one part of our unprecedented investment in local road maintenance over the next five years. We are giving a record £846 million to local authorities in South West that will improve journeys across the region.”

In total, the government is spending a record £6.1 billion nationwide on local highways maintenance between 2015/16 and 2020/21, giving councils long-term certainty for the first time to plan future work with the aim of preventing potholes and improving local roads, bridges and street lighting.

As part of this investment, the Pothole Action Fund will give local authorities in England £50 million a year, over the next 5 years, to help them tackle more than four million potholes. Funding is calculated according to the size of the local road network in the area.