The Government will also give councils a greater share of roads funding if they publish potholes and maintenance data
Motorists across East Yorkshire have been promised smoother and safer driving on the region’s roads, thanks to a major Government investment in their upkeep. Local authorities in the region are set to share in a £500m allocation across Yorkshire and Humber.
Councils will be able to identify roads most in need of repair and then fix existing potholes and prevent new ones thanks to the cash, which forms part of a £7.3bn investment in local roads. The Government says it should lead to immediate improvements for drivers.
Following last week’s Budget, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is also said to be “turning up the pressure” on authorities, in more than tripling the share of local roads funding that is tied to transparency from 8% to more than 30% of national road maintenance funding. That is worth £160m in Yorkshire and Humber alone and can be “unlocked” if councils follow best practice and publish clear pothole and maintenance data.
Councils will still get their core funding, but a much bigger slice of extra cash will now depend on publishing this information. Authorities that fail to will miss out, the Government has said.
Ms Reeves said: “We promised to fix an extra million potholes a year by the end of this Parliament – we’re doing exactly that. We are doubling the funding promised by the previous government, making sure well maintained roads keep businesses moving, communities connected and growth reaching every part of the country.”
Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander said: “We’re delivering the biggest-ever investment in road maintenance to fix Britain’s broken roads. We’re putting our money where our mouth is, giving councils the long-term investment they need to plan properly and get things right first time, saving you money on costly repairs and making a visible difference in our communities.
“This isn’t patchwork politics, we are starting the hard work of fixing Britain’s roads for good.”
In last week’s Budget, the Government set out a commitment to put more than £2bn per year into local roads maintenance funding between 2029-30. It said the sums would allow it to exceed its manifesto commitment to fix an additional one million potholes per year by the end of the Parliament.
Other measures impacting motorists included a new self reported, per mile tax on electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle users. The Chancellor said: “I will ensure that drivers are taxed according to how much they drive and not just the type of car they own by introducing electric vehicle excise duty on electric cars. This will be payable each year alongside vehicle excise duty at 3p per mile for electric cars and 1.5p for plug-in hybrids, helping us to double road maintenance funding in England over the course of this Parliament.”
Meanwhile, £200m will go towards the rollout of electric vehicle charging, as the threshold for the expensive car supplement on electric vehicles will increase to £50,000, which is said to save more than one million motorists £440 a year.