Cash for councils to fill almost 1 million potholes
Government reveals how £250 million Pothole Action Fund will improve local roads and deliver better journeys.
Motorists and cyclists are set to benefit after the government today (Thursday 7 April 2016) announced how £50 million of funding will repair nearly 1 million potholes across the country over the next 12 months.
Over 100 councils in England will receive funding to help remove around 943,000 potholes from local roads during this financial year. The funding has been made available as part of the £250 million Pothole Action Fund included in last month’s Budget, which will fix over 4 million potholes by 2020/21.
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said:
I know how important well-maintained roads are to people across the country. Almost every journey starts and ends on a local road, so the government is giving councils £250 million specifically to tackle the blight of potholes in their area.
This is just one part of our unprecedented investment in local road maintenance over the next 5 years. We are giving a record £6 billion to local authorities in England that will improve journeys across the regions.
In total, the government is spending a record £6.1 billion on local highways maintenance between 2015/16 and 2020/21, giving councils long-term certainty for the first time to plan future work with the aim of preventing potholes and improving local roads, bridges and street lighting.
As part of this investment, the Pothole Action Fund will give local authorities in England £50 million a year, over the next 5 years, to help them tackle more than 4 million potholes. Funding is calculated according to the size of the local road network in the area.
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