Tuesday 12 April 2016

£1.1m pothole funding boost for Northumberland

Today I am pleased to welcome new dedicated funding from the Government to fill nearly 1 million potholes across the UK, including £1,111,000 for Northumberland, enough to fill an estimated 20,962 potholes

Local motorists will benefit from the dedicated funding after the Government announced that nearly £50 million of funding will be made available to local councils over the next 12 months.  This is part of a wider move to fill 58,039 potholes across the North East with over 100 councils in England receiving funding. Northumberland received more than a third of the total North East funding allocation. 

The funding has been made available to councils as part of the Government’s £250 million Pothole Action Fund included in last month’s budget, which will see over four million potholes fixed by 2020/21, and is part of the Government’s plan to invest in infrastructure to secure a better future for our economy. 

The state of our roads is consistently raised with me by local residents and remains a great source of frustration for drivers. 

This new funding is welcome news for families and businesses in Northumberland who rely on our roads to get around.  I’ve been campaigning for a long time for greater investment in road repairs, and I’m encouraging the County Council to make full use of their allocation to help improve Northumberland's poor roads.  

I am very pleased that the Government is investing to improve the standard of our local roads.