October 25, 2022 6.00 am This story is over 30 months old

Difficult year ahead for Lincolnshire road maintenance

Inflation already increased County Council’s budget by £1m
Funding for major highways repairs has been slashed.

Lincolnshire’s roads will have a difficult 12 months ahead, as highways councillors are “hoping and praying to whichever religious denomination” that inflation issues costing the council almost £1million extra are just a blip.

Councillor Richard Davies, executive member for highways at Lincolnshire County Council, said inflation rates were running in some areas at more than 50% for some materials.

The authority’s Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee was told on Monday that £964,000 had been put aside for the department to tackle rising costs and attempt to protect small and medium enterprises from being put under pressure.

Councillor Tom Dyer raised fears the impact of inflation that highways would have to do less work with the funding it had.

Councillor Davies said: “The next 12 months are going to be difficult. We won’t be able to do as much as we like.

“The impact on the network is hard to say at the moment, but everybody’s pulling in the right direction here to make it happen.

“We are hoping, praying to whichever religious denomination that the inflation issues we’re seeing are a blip because it’s cascading across everything.”

Councillor Davies noted some projects had seen a 68% increase in the cost of materials.

He added that it was a national picture and needed to be addressed in terms of the area being “vastly underfunded”.

Cllr Davies explained the situation was not helped by the government’s behaviour “exacerbating” market problems, and hoped that following the election of the new Prime Minister – announced this afternoon as Rishi Sunak – would “see a period of calm” in which to address the situation.

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