Plymouth to spend extra £20m on preventing potholes

Plymouth councillors have agreed to invest a further £2m a year to prevent potholes on city roads over the next decade.

The extra £20m funding was agreed by the council at the annual budget setting meeting.

The cash will be spent on lasting road resurfacing which the council said provides provide better value than short term patching.

The funding, part of which will come from income from bus lane enforcement cameras, means the council will be spending a total of £5.1m on road maintenance over the next year.

The pothole blitz was proposed by Cabinet Member for Transport Mark Coker, who said the council understood the strength of feeling about the problem amongst Plymouth residents and the need for a sustainable, longer-term solution.

He said: "This is a national problem and we know it will only get worse unless we find a long term solution.

"This extra funding is the start of that process and means we have committed a minimum of £2m extra a year over 10 years, while continuing to work on a detailed long term solution to rid this city of potholes and improve the road network.

"I will be continuing to lobby ministers to get them to acknowledge the scale of this problem and the need for Government support."