The Department for Transport has announced a £201 million fund
£50m of funding will be redistributed amongst local authorities
The fund could be used to resurface more than a thousand miles of road.
The rest of the £151 fund will be distributed to reward examples of best practice.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said:
“Every motorist knows that potholes have been a problem in the last few years. That is why the Government is continuing to step up it’s funding to local authorities to address this”.
AA president Edmund King said:
“Recent increases in funding means that the country is beginning to find its way out of the road rut.
“This £201 million road repair fund and a milder winter presents an opportunity to begin to catch up on the backlog”.
“But this funding needs to be sustained to make meaningful inroads to improve the condition of our highways”.
Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s transport spokesman, said:
“Potholes are the scourge of all road users and this funding is good news to help councils repair them and pioneer innovative ways to stop them from forming in the first place.
“While innovation will help councils, who are fixing a pothole every 17 seconds, funding challenges remain for local authorities to deal with long-term maintenance of their local roads and address a backlog of road repairs which has risen to nearly £10 billion to provide better roads that are safer and more resilient to constant use”.
“This is why we have called on the Government to also invest the equivalent of 2p of existing fuel duty to bring our roads up to scratch”.
A recent report recommended that over the next decade, councils in England and Wales would need to spend £10b to get their road infrastructure up to standard.
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