I promised residents when I was re-elected in 2021 to campaign for more local highways spending.
We made a strong start in our May 2022/23 budget with £5.8 million one-off spending on additional road patching, pavements and road safety, and additional annual capital spending of £3.1 million on highways maintenance for the next decade. A budget that the Lib Dems, Labour & Greens declined to support.
We are now stepping that up with proposals to bring forward an additional £15.7 million of spending this year.
The recommendation comes after cabinet members asked at the start of the year for detailed modelling of how further extra investment in our highways could be most effective.
If these proposals are agreed next week, it would bring the council’s spending on highways this year (2023/24) to almost £34m.
We can only do this because, unlike most Lib Dem, Green & Labour-run authorities, our finances are in sufficiently good shape to deliver and we approach local government spending from a principles and evidence based perspective.
