£5m extra to invest in Buckinghamshire’s roads

Buckinghamshire County Council Councillors have unanimously agreed to use more than £1 million from the Council’s reserves to boost investment in the county’s roads.

It goes into a pot that now totals £5m for an immediate highways repairs programme. The money from the reserves has been combined with recent government grants, money earmarked for road repairs, and Member-devolved budgets to make up the £5m fund.The works will start immediately now the spend has been agreed.

It means a total of £20m is beinginvested in the county’s roads by the County Council in 2018-19.

Leader Martin Tett today (Thursday 26 April) recommended county councillors approve the release of the £1.2m from reserves to boost funding for a ‘plane and patch’ programme and to add £480,000 from their own devolved budgets to this scheme.

“Winter has taken a very heavy toll on the roads not just here but everywhere,” he said.

“It’s a national problem. Quite frankly, as a country, we’ve under-invested in our roads over many decades and this leaves them vulnerable to very wet, cold winters.

“It is the duty of this County Council to respond to what our residents want us to do which is why we have assembled this fund. The £5 million is on top of £15 million of capital funding we have already agreed to spend on the county’s roads, giving us a total of £20 million to spend on improving our roads for our residents.”

Martin said the additional £5m county-wide ‘plane and patch’ scheme would concentrate on resurfacing larger areas of damaged road surfaces – or ‘pothole farms’ – as well as continuing individual pothole repairs.