Thursday 26th February 2004

Money to be spent on Roads Shocker

£14 million to repair cracks in the roads

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Local roads damaged by last summer's hot dry weather will be repaired thanks to £14.2 million funding announced today by Transport Minister Tony McNulty.

This funding has been made available as a direct response to requests from those local authorities in the worst affected areas and demonstrates the Government's commitment to ensuring that our roads remain in a good state of repair and are safe for all road users.

Eight local authorities in the South East and East of England whose roads were worst hit by the weather will share in the money. These include:

South East:
East Sussex: £4.6 million
Kent: £1.9 million
Isle of Wight: £1.2 million
Hampshire £1.0 million
West Sussex: £1.0 million
Buckinghamshire: £0.2 million

East of England:
Cambridgeshire: £2.2 million
Peterborough: £2.2 million

Transport Minister Tony McNulty said:

"During the exceptionally hot and dry conditions, clay and peaty soils underlying the roads shrank causing them to subside leading to deformation of the road surface and severe cracking.

"The announcement of this funding demonstrates the Government's commitment to working closely with local authorities to ensure that our roads remain in a good state of repair and do not endanger road users. I am pleased that the Department has been able to provide the worst hit local authorities with additional funding to repair the damage ".

[ridds]

East Sussex: £4.6 million


'Bout time too!!!!

[Dan]

whoop-de-doo

So is this coming out of the £36bn the motorist pays into the governemnts coffers a year or are they going to raise road tax YET again.

Me a cynic?

[dontlift]

Agreed Dan, i was also wondering what they spent all the road tax on rather than the roads as part of their commitment etc blah blah blah politics drivel give us yer money blah blah

[daydreamer]

What about up North - is it OK for us to have SH1T roads

[mattjbatch]

My thoughts exactly daydreamer. Leeds has got the worsst potholes I've ever seen. Some are comically bad. Maybe its deliberate? Potholed road = no need for speed bumps.

[count duckula]

£200k for bucks, you are having a bubble bath, you could spend that on about 4 of my local reads.

Maybe some of the millions they get from speed traps could be put into the roads ?

Malc

[Davel]

As usual - stuff all for the North!

[stackmonkey]

Davel said:

As usual - stuff all for the North!

Yep, what a surprise...

[IPAddis]

Or the South West. How nice of the sun to only damage the roads in Hampshire and leave the ones next door in Dorset pristine. As for Devon and Cornwall, aren't they in a third world country somewhere?

I sometimes wonder if the powers that be in London actually realise there is more to this country than London and the home counties.

Ian A.

[S Works]

The cynic in me is rearing it's ugly head again... this all sounds great but what do these numbers actually translate to in real terms?

Which roads?

What's the money being spent on?

How much is really needed in order to make our roads of a decent quality, and safer for all users (including our friends the pedestrians!)?

Big numbers sound great but without true transparency to back them up it's all just more government guff if you ask me.

[voyds9]

There must be an election coming.
It's just a sweetener

[cortinaman]

also its coming up to the end of the tax year so they need to spend upto their buget otherwise they wont be able to con as much out of us in april!.....W***ERS!