Council can bid for road repair funds
●
HALTON Borough Council could bid for a share of nearly £350m worth of funding made avaliable by the Government to improve roads over the next four years.
The Department For Transport (DFT) is offering £348m to local authorities to use for major maintenance projects and those designed to ease congestion.
Two sets of funding will be available for local authorities to bid on for in an effort to tackle issues on major roads, from easing congestion through to sorting out potholes.
The first pot of investment, the Challenge Fund, will be available for this year and the next,
with just under £200m on offer.
Councils will be able to bid for projects that will improve the quality of roads and surrounding infrastructure – including structures such as bridges and viaducts if necessary – to benefit the economy and make driving safer.
A DFT spokesman said that in particular, the funding could be put toward sorting major pothole repairs.
The second set of funding, the Pinch Point Fund, will be available in 2021/22 and 2022/23 and totals £150m.
It will go towards council projects designed to help ease congestion on some of their busiest roads.
A Government spokesman said: “Local roads are the backbone of the transport network for drivers up and down the country, but we know that some aren’t up to the standard they need to be. Whether it’s congestion or quality, we need to empower local authorities to invest in these roads and make journeys safer and stressfree.
“That’s exactly what this funding will do – over four years we’re providing more than a third of a billion pounds to make sure local authorities have the cash they need to make this a reality.”
The announcement is the latest in a string of funding injections the DFT has made into ensuring roads are fit for purpose.
The department is investing more than £6.6bn between 2015 and 2021, including the £198m funding for the Challenge Fund, to improve the condition of the local highway networks.