Pothole budget could be £30m

Oct 26 2012 By Camilla Goodman

POTHOLED roads in Bucks could receive another £30million funding for repairs.

Bucks County Council’s cabinet member for transportation and planning Councillor Peter Hardy went to a public meeting on highways at Chesham Town Hall on Monday where he announced he is expecting the resurfacing budget to be the same as the last two years for 2013/14 and 2014/15 – £30m.

He added: “We’ll be spending relatively the same amount of money on resurfacing as we’ve been spending in the last two years, that is subject to the budget being the same, which is my expectation.”

Mr Hardy approached the town mayor, Councillor Colette Littley, about another public meeting on the town’s roads following the one chaired by her predecessor Councillor Derek Lacey last September.

He said: “I thought the meeting was really positive and I’m really pleased with some of the comments made. Quite rightly we were also held to account because things have not been done as quickly as we’d like.”

At the meeting, head of services at Ringway Jacobs, which carries out the roadworks on behalf of the council, Jon Collett, gave an update on the progress since the last meeting and said last year, more than 45,000 potholes were repaired – more than 180 per day.

He said they have now invested in new equipment and have a fresh approach to inspecting potholes and they hope to repair 60,000 this year.

He added: “I think it’s fair to say over the last year we’ve struggled. We’re now reasonably confident we can start to address the issue. It’s not to say we’ll fix everything but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Leader of BCC Councillor Martin Tett told the Advertiser: “Our roads are unacceptable and they’ve been neglected. They need a lot of work. Every road has potholes but we’d need £300m to fix them all. We can only do what we can. I blame the Labour government. They starved Buckinghamshire of money. The roads programme has made a significant difference.”

The programme for 2013/14 and 2014/15 is now being put together and people have been encouraged to contact their county councillors to get roads put on it.

Mr Hardy added: "If there are any roads you feel we need to do some work on during the next two years talk to your local councillors who will put them forward."