The Department for Transport (DfT) has sent a warning to councils that have not yet published their plans for utilising their share of government funding.
The £300 million cash sum was redirected from HS2 to be spent on road resurfacing. However, as a condition for highway authorities to receive the funding, the DfT advises that they must provide a two-year plan detailing the exact roads that will benefit. This measure is to certify that the money is used for pothole repairs, as intended.
Currently, only 102 of the 119 highway authorities that received funding have responded, leaving one in seven yet to do so. Failure to publish these reports could result in the withdrawal of future funding for road resurfacing. The DfT also noted that the general public can now check their local council’s plans for themselves.
This follows a string of concerns over government funding for road resurfacing. Councils are facing a reduction in funding this year due to the loss of a one-off £200 million cash boost for potholes last year. Meanwhile, there remain doubts over whether the £8 billion uplift from 2025 will be provided.
Rick Green, chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, noted that transparency on the use of government money is paramount: “We have supported the need for transparency of funding allocations and the requirement for local authorities to report on the local roads to benefit will hopefully ensure the money is not diverted.
“But, as the Government itself says, this additional funding is only enough to resurface 5,000 miles of local roads over 11 years, while our 2024 ALARM survey report highlights that there are already 31,000 miles of local roads reported to have less than five years’ life remaining.”
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