Council bosses are to spend more money to fix Norfolk's roads.
Extra cash will see more Norfolk roads fixed
Dan Grimmer
Monday, March 4, 2013
2:10 PM
An extra 50 miles of Norfolk’s roads will be repaired, thanks to a government hand-out to tackle damage caused by winter weather, county councillors have agreed.
Norfolk County Council’s controlling Conservative cabinet today agreed how to spend millions of pounds of extra money awarded to the authority by the government.
The government announced in December that it would make £5.7m available to the county council to use over the next two years, and the cabinet decided how to use £3.7m in the coming financial year.
The cabinet agreed that £1.8m will be used on surface dressing and £1.4m on road surfacing, which the council says will enable just under 50 miles more to be treated.
While the annual bill just to maintain the current condition of the county’s roads is £35m, the cabinet agreed to spend just over £26m on structural maintenace.
A further £1.4m will be spent on bridges, with a further £2m earmarked for integrated transport schemes.
The council had already agreed to set aside a further £2m for specific highway improvement projects identified by town and parish councils through a ‘parish partnerships’ intitiative and forother road improvements to support communities and businesses.
Alison Thomas, cabinet member for children’s services and county councillor for Long Stratton, said: “The increased investment in surface dressing is very welcome and something my residents will be very keen to see.”
Graham Plant, cabinet member for planning and transportation said the council would continue its attempts to get extra cash to repair drought, frost and rain-damaged Fen roads.
Funding bids from Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire county councils, plus Peterborough City Council, to patch-up worse than expected drought damage in the Fens failed last year.
Transport minister Norman Baker insisted it would be unfair on national taxpayers and local authorities to provide more cash on top of existing grants to the region.
But Norfolk county councillors have again joined with neighbouring authorities to push the government to fund improvements across the four counties.
Mr Plant said: “We have had a difficult time in the west. We have allocated some structural maintenance to that and it looks like we will have to do some more of that in the future.”
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7 comments
It seems the Tories have a never-ending supply from the magic-money tree which flourishes at election time-but not if you are poor,disabled or vulnerable.The tree of scapegoating bears no fruit at all for the demonised.
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Peter Watson
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Electioneering alert!
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ingo wagenknecht
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Its not so much a case of paying for road repairs as a blatant attempt to buy votes for the forthcoming NCC election. They can't fund the ambulance service properly but pre-election giveaways are limitless. Why would the companies do a proper job if it cuts off their annual revenue stream for repat work?
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Police Commissioner ???
Monday, March 4, 2013
Any repairs required will be done as cheaply as possible. Then next year they will need to be done again! If you need an example of what happens when corners are cut,look at Thickthorn roundabout,done on the cheap and already falling to bits after 6 years!
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Harry Rabinowitz
Monday, March 4, 2013
Any repairs required will be done as cheaply as possible. Then next year they will need to be done again! If you need an example of what happens when corners are cut,look at Thickthorn roundabout,done on the cheap and already falling to bits after 6 years!
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Harry Rabinowitz
Monday, March 4, 2013
Try allowing another company to repair the roads instead of the usual, useless, companies
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"V"
Monday, March 4, 2013
It's not about damage caused by the winter, it's more about lack of investment in the past and poor workmanship and materials being used at present.
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John L Norton
Monday, March 4, 2013