Extra £3.3m pledged for roads despite challenging finances

At the meeting of the full council, councillors will debate and agree the council’s budget which now includes a further £3.3m for road maintenance.

Councillor Martin Hill said: “The latest budget proposals allocate an additional £9m in total for highways repairs and improvement for the next financial year, combining various strands of money, and will bring the total investment in Lincolnshire roads to £34m for the next financial year.

“We’ve been able to do this because we secured additional money from the government – both from additional rural services grant funding, and because we were accepted as a pilot area to retain all of our business rates growth, along with other councils in Lincolnshire.

“This extra money will help repair our road network that has deteriorated recently from the winter weather, however it will still fall well short of the hundreds of millions of pounds we would need to bring all roads up to the standard we would like.

“It’s clear that what we need is long-term, sustainable funding for the future, recognising the challenges of looking after 5,500 miles of roads in the county.”

This money from council funds is in addition to the £1.7m from the government’s Pothole Action Fund, recently announced for Lincolnshire.

• For more information on the council’s budget, see www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/budget