CASH to fix Britain’s crumbling road networks has been slashed by nearly half a billion pounds, the Sun can reveal.
Council funding earmarked to fill in potholes has also been quietly cut by over £150m with some councils seeing their road repair budgets dropping by over a third.
Labour say the funding would be enough to fill 12million potholes.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapp’s local constituency in Hertfordshire has lost £6 million alone.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak told Brits last month to “enjoy #NationalPotholeDay before they’re all gone…” but figures show that funding for road repairs in his Yorkshire constituency have dropped by nearly £8million.
On average funding for fixing potholes dropped by 23 per cent, while total road repair budgets are down 22 per cent in 2021/22.
Last year the Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance survey found that it would take 11 years to clear the maintenance backlog if local authorities had the funding and resources available to do the work.
Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said: “Communities across the country, including their own constituents, are paying the price for these broken promises.”
“Only last year the Chancellor vowed to make potholes a thing of the past – and then quietly slashed the budget by £400m, enough to fill 12 million potholes.
“Labour’s contract with the British people will mean rebuilding the infrastructure our communities depend on – and fixing the Tory mess on our roads.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “The Government is providing more than £5 billion of investment over 2020-2025 for highways maintenance to local highways authorities across England.
“This is enough to fill millions of potholes a year, repair dozens of bridges, and resurface roads up and down the country.”
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.hellofaread.com/politics/what-time-is-pmqs-today/
