Powys Council is to apply for up to £6 million from government to tackle the state of the county’s roads.
The council is putting together bids from the new Levelling Up Fund to help address problems that have seen Powys named the worst authority in Wales for road conditions.
This was one of the outcomes that came from a meeting of the Economy, Residents and Community Scrunity Commitee last week. It was being discussed during a debate on the £2 million Covid Recovery Fund cash, which included £1.8 million from the Welsh Government to cover pandemic costs. Of this £340,000 a year will go on fixing potholes, said the council, in a report by Country Times.
The bid was announced by corporate director for economy and environment, Nigel Brinn, who said: “We know we have a deteriorating network, and we will have put in quite a significant bid for capital financing from the levelling up fund to support our network.
“In terms whether recovery means the visitor economy or access to services we all appreciate how important the network work is.”
Mr Brinn added: “We have identified three specific schemes to go into our levelling up funding proposal, the work being done is very good given the time available and it’s a strong and credible case why we need particular support for our extensive network.
Head of highways Matt Perry said that the £340,000 from the Covid Recovery Fund, is “quite small the grand scheme” of highway maintenance.
Mr Perry said: “We’re looking in the region for five to six million just to confirm the resurfacing works and invest in those areas of the highways network so that it boosts the local economy.”
Council leader Cllr Rosemarie Harris, said: “We’ll bid for more as part of the levelling up funding, obviously we’ve had all those years of austerity when we were unable to invest in roads and we are aware that there is an opportunity for us to bring things back up to a standard that will help the economy.” Committee chairman, Cllr Mathew Dorrance, asked for evidence of how the potholes were affecting rural businesses.
