Bridgnorth Town Council to ask for ‘fair share’ of pothole funding
Bridgnorth Town Council will be making calls that a ‘reasonable’ share of the extra funding given to tackle Shropshire’s pothole crisis should be spent in the town.
It was recently announced that Shropshire Council will get an extra £1.86 million to deal with the damage caused by the cold weather and storms.
Bridgnorth town councillors want the town to see a fair share of the funding and have voted in favour of writing to Shropshire Council to seek assurances that this will happen.
The vote was taken at a meeting of the town council on Tuesday evening following a request from a member of the public.
Mayor of Bridgnorth, Councillor Ron Whittle said he will now write to the council’s head of highways, on behalf of the town council, asking for assurances that a ‘reasonable proportion’ of the money will be spent on repairing potholes in Bridgnorth.
He said he will also be asking the council for a breakdown of how the money will be distributed within the county.
Councillor Whittle said: “It’s a major issue all over the country. There’s a lot of them all over the place.
“I will be writing a letter to Shropshire Council asking for assurances that a reasonable proportion of the money is spent in the Bridgnorth area.”
During the meeting, Councillor Sarah Barlow said that the town council needed to put pressure on Shropshire Council to use some of the money available to repair potholes in Bridgnorth.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling announced the extra funding for councils last month.
Telford & Wrekin Council will also get an extra £348,000 to spend on repairing the roads as part of a £100 million boost from central government.
Mr Grayling said the money would help repair almost two million potholes as well as help protect the roads from any future severe weather.
This is on top of the £75 million in government funding already given to councils from the Pothole Action Fund this year, as well as the additional £46 million boost for highways authorities announced just before Christmas.
Around seven million potholes will be filled due to this money, announced in the 2016 Budget.
In January alone Shropshire Council received 1,200 reports of damage.
Each day the council’s highways teams are out repairing an average of 260 potholes.
