North Yorkshire County Council welcomes an allocation of £1.6m for pothole repairs this year allocated by the Department for Transport today (Thursday April 7th).
The £1,637,000 funding for potholes on North Yorkshire’s 9,000km road network, one of the largest in the country, forms part of the £250 million Pothole Action Fund which was included in the Chancellor’s Budget last month. The Fund is designed to fix over four million potholes nationally by 2020/21.
North Yorkshire’s allocation is a large slice of the £5.2 million for 14 councils in Yorkshire and The Humber this year to help remove around 98,000 potholes in the region. It comes on top of the £27,182,000 the county council has been granted for its annual highways maintenance budget.
“We welcome this funding for pothole repairs” said County Councillor Don Mackenzie, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways. “Our allocation reflects the extensive nature of our road network and of the task we face. Spending on the repair of our roads is one of the most important investments we can make for the economic wellbeing of North Yorkshire and the benefit of everyone who lives and works in the county. All funding is welcome and will form part of our continuing investment in maintaining and improving the condition of our road network.”
This latest funding announcement follows £24m of funding from the Government’s Local Growth Fund that the County Council was awarded last month towards a £32m package over five years.to support maintenance on rural roads. This will feed into the centres of growth around Catterick Garrison, Malton and Norton, Scarborough, Selby, Skipton, Harrogate, Northallerton and Thirsk.
The funding will be supplemented by an additional £8m from the County Council’s reserves, demonstrating the high priority the council gives to highway maintenance. This builds on more than £14m of additional funding the council has invested in road maintenance over the last two years.
As many potholes in rural North Yorkshire come about as a result of damage to the edge of the road, rather than just patch these potholes the council has undertaken much more cost-efficient repairs by resurfacing the road, thus filling existing holes and preventing others forming.
Cllr Mackenzie added: “We are grateful for the government support. It will make a small but significant contribution to our programme, although we do still face a substantial backlog in our highway maintenance programme.”