DfT injects £348 million into boosting local roads quality
£348 million funding across 4 years for local authorities to tackle issues on major local roads, from easing congestion to potholes.
- Department for Transport announces the opening of £348 million funding competition to help improve local roads over the next 4 years
- funding will be available for local authorities to bid for, allowing them to work on major maintenance projects, as well as on projects that will ease congestion on our busiest roads
- announcement follows £6.6 billion investment in local road maintenance in the last 5 years
The Department for Transport has today (20 July 2019) announced nearly £350 million is being made available for councils to improve local roads up and down the country.
Two sets of funding, totalling £348 million across 4 years, will be available for local authorities to bid for in an effort to tackle issues on major local roads, from easing congestion through to sorting out potholes.
The first pot of investment, the challenge fund, will be available for this year and the next, with just under £200 million on offer. Councils will be able to bid for projects that will improve the quality of roads and surrounding infrastructure, including structures such as bridges and viaducts if necessary, to benefit the local economy and make driving safer. In particular, the funding could be put toward sorting major pothole repairs.
The second set of funding, the pinch point fund, will be available in 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 and totals £150 million. It will go towards council projects designed to help ease congestion on some of their busiest roads. Previous examples of projects funded through pinch point include improving the links between the A12 and A143 to open up housing and commercial development land, new roads helping buses bypass single lane roads, and new roads to link main roads with new housing developments.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said:
Local roads are the backbone of the transport network for drivers up and down the country, but we know that some aren’t up to the standard they need to be. Whether it’s congestion or quality, we need to empower local authorities to invest in these roads and make journeys safer and stress-free.
That’s exactly what this funding will do – over 4 years we’re providing more than a third of a billion pounds to make sure local authorities have the cash they need to make this a reality.
Today’s announcement is the latest in a string of funding injections the department has made into making sure roads are fit for purpose. The department is investing over £6.6 billion between 2015 and 2021, including the £198 million funding announced today, to improve the condition of the local highway networks.
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