£1.5m to mend potholes in Leeds is not enough, claims leader

COUNCILLORS in Leeds have announced a new £1.5m boost to repair the district's damaged roads '“ but the council's leader is worried this still will not be enough.
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Leeds City Council’s head of highways and transportation has approved plans to spend an extra £1,481,000 on filling pot holes, after receiving help from the Department for Transport (DfT).

Some of this money will come from the government, after Leeds received  an extra £159,000 from the DfT’s pothole action fund. A document released by Leeds City Council said: “(We) give authority to incur expenditure of £1,481,000 on carriageway maintenance, to repair potholes, and prevent potholes forming.

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“This will be made up of £1,322,000 works costs and £159,000 fees, funded from government grant.”

The authority estimates this to be enough to repair 27,900 potholes. The bulk of the money will be made up of £998,000, which the council received last year from the government fund.

But leader of Leeds City Council Judith Blake said: “These pothole repairs are part of a programme of work using funding allocated by the Department for Transport and will help us repair roads damaged during the harsh winter.

“While this announcement by the Government to assist our work preventing and tackling the problem of potholes is certainly very welcome, there remains a significant shortfall in the funding that is needed to clear the current backlog of highway maintenance work in the city. If we are to make significant improvements in the long-term, more funding needs to be provided on a national level to ensure that the demands of the city’s highway maintenance programme continue to be met.”

It has not yet been decided which roads will be repaired.

Councillors will be asked for suggestions.