Extra £156million to maintain Nottinghamshire roads – but highways leader says it’s still not enough

The government is allocating a £8.3bn pot across the current financial year and the next ten. This will go towards problems such as potholes in an ongoing repairs schedule, as well as winter damage and clearing gulleys to ease flooding.

Nottinghamshire County Council will be given another £138m over the full period, although this starts in much smaller chunks of £2.3m for 2023/24 and 2024/25. Nottingham City Council will get £20m overall, with £352,000 in both of the next two financial years.

Councillor Neil Clarke (Con), the cabinet member for transport and environment at Nottinghamshire County Council, said: “The money that we have received is very welcome but there’s always room for more. We’ve received £4.7m over the next 18 months, which will enable us to keep our strategy going for large patch repairs and keep our roads maintained.

“A lot of the money is for pothole repairs, but also it’s for other things on the highways – for instance drainage gulleys, preparing for winter and street lighting. With winter coming, the roads do get damaged and we need to be able to repair those and keep people safe. I’m afraid it’s not enough to fix all of Nottinghamshire’s roads. We will still be pressing to obtain additional funding.”

The Department for Transport says the extra funding is a two-thirds increase for local roads. Once the authorities became part of the East Midlands Combined County Authority next year, funds will instead be allocated there instead.