County council welcomes funding boost for highways

Staffordshire’s roads will be getting a welcome funding boost over the next few years.

Highways bosses at Staffordshire County Council have welcomed a government announcement that £8.3 billion will be invested into England’s roads over the next 11 years.

A total of £2.2 billion will be invested in the West and East Midlands alone.

The funding is part of the Government’s Network North plan to spend the money saved by cancelling HS2 north of Birmingham.

Although the final figure for Staffordshire has yet to be announced, the money is in addition to the £20 million the authority has already invested in the repair and maintenance of highways over the past 12 months.

With more than 6,000km of roads, the county council has undertaken a comprehensive programme of repair and resurfacing.

This includes a £30 million investment in the county council’s highways over two years.

This latest fund will be allocated to maintaining, repairing and improving the county’s roads.

Reacting to the news, Staffordshire County Council Cabinet Member for Commercial Mark Deaville said: “As a county council, we are committed to fixing more of Staffordshire’s roads and have invested £30 million to deliver on this promise over the next two years. We have used this money to invest in groundbreaking AI technology to identify defects and innovative machinery like the JCB Pothole Pro to repair them. On average, we fill a pothole every eight minutes.

“Although we are still waiting for the finer details, this latest funding will certainly be more welcome news for Staffordshire motorists. It means we will be able to repair more roads and invest in more innovative technology to help our crews and make our improvements as efficient as possible.”