£2m additional funding to improve York’s roads

An additional £2 million has been made available to help improve roads and footpaths in York.

The money has been allocated by City of York Council to the highway maintenance budget and will be used to improve local and residential roads.

Funding will be used to target the largest percentage of poor and very poor condition roads which are indentified through annual surveys of the condition of the highway network. The network is divided into three classifications of principal (9.6%), non-principal (21.6%) and unclassified roads (68.8%).

A report will be taken to a public decision session on 24 April asking the cabinet member for environmental services to approve the proposed programme of works and seek approval for implementation within the 2014/15 financial year.

Cllr David Levene, cabinet member for transport, said: “Our road network consistently ranks amongst the best in the region and the country, but we recognise there’s more that can be done. We know from listening to residents that roads and footpaths in residential areas are a high priority, which is why we’ve brought forward this targeted funding.”

Andy Binner, head of highways and waste at City of York Council, added: “In recent years York has experienced some of the worst winter and wet weather conditions in 30-years. Last year the council successfully secured £434,710 national grant towards repairing York’s roads, which is only awarded to authorities in harsh/extreme weather situations. The additional £2m will go a long way to helping to improve residential and local roads and footpaths damaged by these conditions.”