A new government map ranking councils’ pothole fixing has been published.
Drivers will now be able to see how effectively their council is tackling potholes, with each local authority being graded on a green, amber, and red scale. The map ranks the council on how they are spending the Government’s £30million funding to fix potholes and invest in long term measures to maintain roads.
The councils have been ranked on three categories – condition, spend, and wider best practice – with East Riding receiving an ‘amber’ ranking overall. In the individual categories, East Riding scored a red in spend.
Heidi Alexander, the Government’s Transport Secretary has said:
“For too long drivers in Yorkshire and the Humber have paid the price because our roads were left to deteriorate. I have heard time and again their frustration on footing the bill because they hit a pothole – money they should never have to spend in the first place.
“We’ve put our money where our mouth is, increasing the funding in Yorkshire and the Humber with £500 million to fix roads and given them the long-term certainty they have been asking for. Now it’s over to them to spend the money wisely, and for the first time we are making sure the public can see how well local highway authorities are doing in delivering the improvements they want to see in their local area. This Government’s record investment will save drivers money on repairs, make roads safer and help restore pride in our communities.”
A spokesperson for East Riding of Yorkshire Council said:
“The Department for Transport (DfT) provides funding to councils for road maintenance rather than specifically for potholes and the evaluation relates to our performance in maintaining the highways.
“Once we receive details on the evaluation, we will be working to see how we can improve our performance. Details on how we plan road improvements are given on our webpage Highways planned maintenance, which includes details of our spending for the last five years in our Local Highways Maintenance Transparency Report.
“At the time of the Transparency Report, our highway maintenance funding for this year was expected to be a total of £31.2m. With the support of additional maintenance funding from the DfT, we have spent an extra £3m on our local roads on the previous year on improving road conditions. East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Hull City Council will be working with the Mayoral Combined Authority to work up future road maintenance plans.”
By: Andrew Spence, LDRS
