MOTORISTS and cyclists are set to benefit after the government today (Thursday 7 April 2016) announced how £50 million of funding will repair nearly 1 million potholes across the country over the next 12 months.
11 councils in East of England will receive a share of £7.2 million, helping to remove around 136,000 potholes from local roads during this financial year. 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.
The report states that Thurrock is being given 110,000 for its 2,075 potholes.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said:
“I know how important well-maintained roads are to people across the East of England. Almost every journey starts and ends on a local road, so the government is giving councils in the region £7.2 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 £644 million to local authorities in the East of England 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.
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Local Authority
Pothole Action Fund 2016/17 (£)
Number of potholes can fill
Peterborough
175,000
3,302
Luton
59,000
1,113
Southend-on-Sea
65,000
1,226
Thurrock
110,000
2,075
Bedford
137,000
2,585
Central Bedfordshire
244,000
4,604
Cambridgeshire
973,000
18,358
Essex
1,500,000
28,302
Hertfordshire
943,000
17,792
Norfolk
1,616,000
30,491
Suffolk
1,384,000
26,113
