West Lothian Council has said it will invest in the region’s growing road and footpath network, including town centre street improvements, bridges and street lightening, with over £53 million to be invested by 2028.
Plans are for £10m will be invested between April 2021 and March 2022 alone. An additional £750,000 will be spent next year on repairing potholes.
Speaking to the Linlithgow Gazette, Tom Conn, Executive councillor for the environment, said: “Each year the council spends millions of pounds upgrading and maintaining the local road network. Since the 10-year capital programme was approved in 2012, over £61 million has been spent.
“Overall, West Lothian currently has one of the best maintained road networks in Scotland but there is always room for improvement. The fact is that potholes and road works are inevitable, and occur on all roads at some point, in every local authority.
“Work on repair and maintenance never ends and our teams continually work on these projects. We always try to improve what we have and that’s why an additional £750,000 will be spent next year alone on repairing potholes. This includes potholes that our team have on their planned list of work already, and new potholes that are reported to us.
“Our online reporting form has helped us receive more detailed information from customers and allowed customers to inform us more easily.”
As part of the £53 million package, £4.8 million will be spend on flood prevention work in Broxburn, the River Almond and Bathgate. £845,000 allocated for town centres improvements. £16 million will be spent on road lighting works. A further £7 million will be invested in maintaining and upgrading bridges during this time.
There will also be investment in cycle ways including the Armadale to Whitburn cycle way and footpath/active travel improvements in Bathgate and West Calder, according to Linlithgow’s report.
