A senior councillor in Doncaster has said there is around £150 million of highways works that need to be delivered across the borough.

Cllr Joe Blackham said the reduction in the revenue support grant of around £120 million made it difficult for the department to carry out the work they wanted to do.

“We’ve managed to maintain the budget for highways without a decrease, which under the current circumstances is exceptionally good. “However, I must point out in terms of highways, we have 150 million pounds approximately, of highways work that requires to be done and when you reflect we’re losing £120 million a year roughly in terms of revenue support grant, there isn’t much scope for actually improving that scenario.

“All works are primarily done on a worst first basis. So although we haven’t reduced the budget in these difficult times, it becomes a more difficult job to manage,” he told the Doncaster Free Press.

“We have also at the same time, set aside a million pounds for the replacement of lighting columns. We have a lot of lighting columns across the borough and there is a strategy in place to gradually replace those that require replacing and they do need replacing so that’s welcome as well.

“So I welcome the fact that we on this occasion have not had to reduce as we did last year, not reduce the highways budget which is good news for everybody across this borough but at the same time recognise the difficulties associated with maintaining that budget and the impact being felt.”

As well as streetlighting columns, other projects from the department show a £4.9 million spend on highway resurfacing schemes, preventative maintenance treatments and local routine maintenance works across the Doncaster road network. Other work includes strengthening and the maintenance of bridges.