March 17, 2023 1.00 pm This story is over 27 months old

Lincolnshire gets an extra £6.8m to fix potholes – but council says it’s not enough

The cost of repairs is rapidly rising
| Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
By Local Democracy Reporter

Lincolnshire has been awarded £6.8 million to fix the “curse of potholes”, although council officials believe more is needed.

Under the newly announced Spring Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has increased funding for on-going maintenance to £700 million a year.

However, Lincolnshire County Council say that the money doesn’t go far enough.

While in Parliament on Wednesday, the Chancellor said: “Following a wet cold winter, I have received particularly strong representations about the curse of potholes.

“The Spending Review allocated £500 million every year to the Potholes Fund but today I have decided to increase that fund by a further £200 million next year to help local communities tackle this problem.”

Lincoln MP Karl McCartney (Conservative), celebrated the news on Twitter, posting: “Of course, I’m always making the case for Lincolnshire and I welcome the additional funding in today’s Budget to add to Lincolnshire County Council’s rolling £millions to fix our roads.

“I am sure both Richard Davies [Executive Member for Highways] and Martin Hill [Leader] are as aware as me of this issue and like me are happy to welcome the news.”

However, Councillor Davies has issued a statement explaining his disappointment as he felt more was needed to supplement the rising cost of material.

“This is welcome new from the budget and the money will be gratefully received for our county,” he said.

“However, in real world terms of rising material costs and the increasing stresses put on our 5,500 mile, m mostly rural, roads network, this money is less than half that already removed year-on-year from our annual roads maintenance budget by the Govt.

“We have already gone to unprecedented measures to try to make up this huge gap between what we absolutely need maintain the roads in our county, and what we have been funded.

“A lot of hard work has been put in place by Lincolnshire County Council to have an extra £7 million put into the huge deficit from a combination of sources.

“Whilst we will ensure that this Govt money announced in the budget will be put to the best possible use across the county for the people of Lincolnshire, we continue our call to Govt to fully reinstate the missing £12.3 million of the funds we need to keep our county moving as it should.”

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