Northumberland County Council’s Leader, Cllr Glen Sanderson has said he has not seen a reduction in maintenance funding after it was announced that the council is to receive £21.8m to maintain roads in 2021-22, £6.6m less than the £28.4m provided in the current financial year – a reduction of 23%.
Cllr Sanderson, said: “To be clear we haven’t seen a reduction in road maintenance funding and in fact the allocation of £21.8m from DfT is higher than we had assumed in our draft programme and will enable extra highway maintenance works to be undertaken this year,” he told the Northumberland Gazette.
“It’s very much business as usual in Northumberland and over the past four years the council has invested significantly – over £109m in highway maintenance works.”
He added: “Last year we welcomed an additional ‘one-off’ extra highway maintenance funding from the Government of £28.4m but knew this would not be the level we’d receive each year.
“Maintaining the County’s roads and footways is a key priority for us, and we’ve already allocated £15m from the council’s own financial resources to support a two-year enhanced maintenance programme for minor roads and footpaths across the county which started last year which is making a significant improvement to our road network.”
Northumberland will share in a £14.1m allocated to the North East Combined Authority for transport improvement projects such as road safety schemes, cycle ways and bus lanes – an increase of £108,000 compared to this financial year.
