Wiltshire Council gets £9m to tackle potholes
The government has allocated £500m to authorities across England
Last updated 16th Feb 2021
A £2.5billion pound Potholes Fund was launched by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, last year to tackle those pesky holes
The £9.2m funding for Wiltshire Council is the second of five installments and will be used for the coming financial year.
The Department for Transport says an average pothole costs about £50 to repair.
It forms part of a larger sum, £22.9m, awarded to Wiltshire Council to to pay for a range of highways maintenance and improvement programmes, including resurfacing, re-signing, new road markings, traffic signals and filling potholes.
Cllr Bridget Wayman, Cabinet Member for Highways, said:
"This is welcome funding that will be invested into improving Wiltshire’s road network, making our roads both safer for motorists and cyclists. It covers several aspects of highways maintenance and improvements, including resurfacing, re-signing, new road markings, traffic signals and filling potholes. "
"However, this funding award represents a significant fall of more than £6m on the previous year, and as such we will have to look at more efficient ways to spend the funding to improve and maintain Wiltshire’s highways network. "
"Our Highways officers will now prepare a report for Cabinet that will look at how we will spend this money and where we will prioritise, against our forward plan of proposed highways work."
MORE POTHOLES FILLED IN 2020
Wiltshire Council repaired 12,354 potholes between January and November last year compared to 10,143 in the same period in 2019.
Cllr Bridget Wayman says less traffic on the roads due to pandemic has helped
"We filled over 20% more potholes in Wiltshire in 2020 compared to 2019, as reduced traffic levels often made it easier for our teams to complete repairs in a safe and COVID-secure way. We also completed 38 major resurfacing projects, and carried out more than 9 miles of verge overrun repairs, along with numerous highways draining and line marking projects."
PLEA TO KEEP REPORTING POTHOLES
"Anyone who spots a highways defect including potholes while they’re using our road network should report it using the MyWilts smartphone app ____or on our website____, and our officers will inspect the road defect and, if appropriate, fix it."