More roads in Harrogate to be repaired as additional £3.3 million awarded for potholes

Nearly £3.3 million of additional government funding to tackle potholes in North Yorkshire has been welcomed by the county's Executive Member for Highways.
Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary has announced a further 100 million in funding for pothole repairs.Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary has announced a further 100 million in funding for pothole repairs.
Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary has announced a further 100 million in funding for pothole repairs.

More roads in Harrogate have been added to a provisional list of areas designated for repair this year, as Transport Secretary Chris Grayling announced a further £100 million to fix potholes across the country.

North Yorkshire County Council has secured the second largest share of the funding, taking £3,285,049 - second only to the North East Combined Authority, which received £4.5 million.

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Councillor Don Mackenzie, NYCC's Executive Member for Highways said he was very pleased with the announcement.

He said: "To put it in perspective, we will have spent - throughout the current year - £48million on our highways.

"That is all the costs associated with our highways, so £3.3 million represents about six or seven per cent of our spending so far.

"It's relatively small, but nonetheless very welcome."

Over the last few weeks the Harrogate Advertiser and its sister papers have been campaigning, in a bid to lobby central government for more funding on our roads.

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Coun Mackenzie agreed that the 'Advertisers Pothole Watch Campaign had been helpful in securing the £3.3 million for North Yorkshire.

He said: "I'm sure the campaign which is currently being waged by local newspapers has been very helpful, certainly."

The additional funding, which was officially announced today has meant that several more roads in the Harrogate District have been designated for repair, including the Ripon and Knaresborough bypasses, Penny Pot Lane and more routes in central Harrogate.

Coun Mackenzie said: "We have just added one or two roads to our surface dressing programme - the Knaresborough bypass, the Ripon bypass, sections of Penny Pot Lane, which is quite bad in parts, especially out towards the household waste recycling centre.

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"We have added these to the programme and we have added roads in the Duchy estate too."

Parts of Swan Road and Otley Road which were not previously designated for repair have now too been added to the list as well as Crescent Road in the town centre.

Coun Mackenzie said the council's maintenance programme is now underway across the district.

He said: "I don't like it in the winter months. We have five months of very bad weather, there's a lot of grit and salt put down on the roads and you know during the course of that time the roads will only get worse because it's the wrong time of year to be doing maintenance work.

"But now that we can start doing the work we can begin making in roads to getting them sorted."