Shropshire highway bosses were forced to spend more than £1.2 million extra on keeping county roads open during last winter’s severe weather.

And the September floods resulted in a £1.5 million overspend on their roads maintenance budget. The massive cost of coping with the bad weather and keeping Shropshire on the move is revealed in a budget monitoring report.

It is being presented next week to the executive committee overseeing the county’s switch to unitary status.

In her report, finance chief Laura Rowley says that for the fourth quarter of 2008/09 there is a projected overspend of £2.368 million (12 per cent) within the highways maintenance and severe weather budget.

“The severity of the winter weather has contributed £1.234 million towards this overspend due to the number of turnouts of the gritting fleet being twice that allowed for in the budget,” says Mrs Rowley.

The situation had not been helped by a national shortage of salt which had seen prices rise significantly.

Mrs Rowley says that at the end of the third quarter it was reported the authority had used the amount of salt equivalent to that expected in a whole year.

She adds: “The severity of the winter weather continued throughout January and February, including several significant snowfalls, and this has caused the budget to be significantly overspent.”

The immediate cost of temporary and remedial repairs to the road and bridges network arising from the floods in September had been completed at a cost of £1.514 million.

But the council is expecting to offset £689,000 of this figure with funding from the Government’s Bellwin emergency help scheme.

The report also highlights a projected fourth quarter overspend of £265,000 on having to place youngsters who have special educational needs with out-of-county services and a £238,000 overspend in the Home to School transport budget.

By Dave Morris