Stirling Council is due a share of almost £50million earmarked for fixing potholes according to a regional MSP.
Tory Mid Scotland MSP Dean Lockhart has called on the Scottish Government to provide the council with its share of the nearly £50 million (48.6m) he says they received from the UK Government as a result of Westminster creating its ‘pothole fund’ in 2020.
The £2.5 billion roads “pothole fund” was created to help English local authorities with their repairs backlog, to be distributed until 2024/25.
Mr Lockhart is arguing that, as a result of the Barnet Formula that allocates an agreed proportion of funding created by the UK Government to the devolved administrations, some £48.6million is therefore allocated for Scotland and passed to the Scottish Government to dispense to Scotland’s local authorities.
The Tory MSP says issues and complaints relating to the state of the Stirling area road network are among the most numerous in his mailbag.
Mr Lockhart has written to Finance Secretary Kate Forbes and Transport Secretary Michael Matheson to ask for evidence that this “ring fenced” money was passed on to local authorities and for a commitment that future allocations will be.
He says to date Stirling Council have not received any of the funding and that their budget allocation for reactive repairs has been used to address a number of road related matters, not just pothole repairs, and has shrunk by more than £250,000 over the past three years.
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Mr Lockhart said: “The number one issue raised by constituents during my time as an MSP has been the state of local roads.
“Some of Stirling’s roads, from Cambuskenneth and Riverside in the town all the way up to Tyndrum in the north, are terrible. The complaints are the same for many areas. With delays caused to repairs during two lockdown periods it is now even more important that every penny available is used to get our roads back into a fit state urgently.
“That is why this money due to Stirling Council must be received and not disappear into the Scottish Government’s coffers for some of their pet projects.
“It is appalling that the one budget the council’s roads service has to call upon for this vital work as well as many other issues has actually got smaller.”
Mr Lockhart said he requested information from Stirling Council on the last four years revenue budget for maintenance of carriageways. This budget is used to address issues such as flooding, damage caused by vehicle incidents, fallen trees and numerous other safety issues and defects on the roads.
In 2021/22 the gross expenditure was £1,279,740.00, in 2020/21 it was £1,328,090.00; in 2019/20 it was £1,322,970.00; and in 2018/19, £1,539,810.00.
The MSP said there was no awareness of any budget having been received through the Pothole Fund.
