Leeds pothole cash is a '˜sticking plaster' for city's crumbling roads

ALMOST £4m of Government funding for Leeds's crumbling roads has been labelled as a 'sporadic one-off sticking plaster solution' by council leader Judith Blake.
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She said the £3.86m allocated to the authority from a £420m fund announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond in the budget last month, was “no quick fix” and a significant shortfall remained in the funding required to clear the current backlog of highway maintenance required in the city.

Coun Blake also raised concerns that the proposed timescale for the allocation of the funding - before the end of the financial year - could be “extremely difficult to achieve”.

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Whilst welcoming the funding, she added: “If we are to make significant improvements in the long-term, there is no quick fix and more national funding needs to be provided consistently, rather than as sporadic one-off sticking plaster solutions like this, to ensure that the demands of the city’s highway maintenance programme continue to be met.”

In total, Yorkshire authority’s are to receive £42m, a tenth of the spend across the country, Roads Minister Jesse Noman said today.

It brings the total Government funds for roads in Yorkshire and the Humber for this year up to £138m.

Wakefield is to receive £1.9m.

As part of the announcement, West Yorkshire Combined Authority has also been shortlisted for the Transforming Cities Fund to bid for a share of £860m for improved transport connections.

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Mr Noman said the pothole cash would help to keep Yorkshire’s “drivers and cyclists safe.”

He added: “Potholes are a huge problem for all road users, and too often we see issues occurring at the same place time after time.”

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