The Government’s £200m pledge to fix the country’s potholes would barely be enough to pay for Newcastle’s huge backlog alone, council bosses have complained.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the extra funding to repair the nation’s roads in last week’s spring budget. But people in Newcastle have been warned that the cash “falls far short” of what is needed to sort out the city’s crumbling highways.
Newcastle has been allocated £602,400 from the new funding – but the city council’s repairs backlog totals a whopping £184m. Labour councillor Jane Byrne, the local authority’s cabinet member for transport, said: “Making sure our roads and pavements are well-maintained is a priority for us and residents in the city understandably expect our highways to be kept in good condition.
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“Unfortunately, we’ve experienced a lack of government funding over a number of years that has meant we’ve had to prioritise the most urgent repairs and maintenance work, leaving a significant backlog still to be addressed.
“We welcome the extra £602,400 announced for Newcastle as part of the recent budget but this still falls far short of the £184m that we need to carry out the required improvements across our network. We will continue to ensure we allocate our limited resources to the highest priority cases where repairs are most needed.”
The highest allocation to a North East council from the new pothole funding has gone to Northumberland, which will get almost £3.9m. County Durham was allocated £2.6m, Sunderland’s share is £734,000, Gateshead gets £608,000, North Tyneside just over £500,000, and South Tyneside will receive £343,600.
Road minister Richard Holden, the Conservative MP for North West Durham, said that increasing the national pothole budget from £500m to £700m a year will be a “major boost”. He added: “Increasing funding so significantly will allow for millions more potholes to be filled as it will also facilitate continued investment in high-tech solutions like the JCB pothole pro, which can fix a pothole in just eight minutes, with a cost of around £30.
"Of this extra money, over £2.6 million is being invested in County Durham alone. This means an extra 52,000 potholes filled in our area in the coming year. Our roads are the arteries of the nation, so it is only right that the Government is paying close attention to making them work as effectively as possible.
"What’s more encouraging is that this is part of a wider package of measures targeted at improving our roads network right here in the North East, for example the £110 million upgrade to the A1 just outside Newcastle or the £51 million upgrade to the A19. A better transport network will further unleash the potential of the North East so I am delighted to see serious attention and money going into this."
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