Shropshire roads contract will go to a single company
A single company will be put in charge of keeping Shropshire's roads up to scratch.
Councillors have approved a plan for one company to take on responsibility for its highways and environmental maintenance.
Shropshire Council's cabinet approved the plans at its meeting this week.
It comes as the council warns of cuts which may impact on the amount of road maintenance that can be carried out on the county's roads.
The council will begin the process of finding a new company to take on the contract from April 2018, which could be worth £17.9 million a year.
The report outlining the method of choosing the new firm, which will replace current contractor Ringway, says that Shropshire Council is facing a reduction in its roads budget of £2.3 million.
It warns of an "inevitable" fall in the amount of work carried out.
Steve Brown, the council's highways, transport and environment commissioning manager, outlined the situation facing the authority in the report.
He said: "The effect on annual term maintenance contract expenditure is a forecast combined capital and revenue reduction in expenditure from £20.2 million to £17.9 million.
"Therefore, while the council will continue to meet its statutory requirements, reductions in volumes, standards, specifications, frequency of works and service requests are inevitable, and will need to be achieved to meet the financial pressures."
Commenting on the situation at the cabinet meeting, Councillor Alan Mosley said: "I hope we have learned from the experience with Ringway to ensure that on the client side there is rigorous monitoring of the contract."What this heralds is a change of name on the lorries but no change in the decline of the service."
In response, Council Leader Malcolm Pate said: "We are trying to be reasonable about how we deal with the budget. We do not want to make these cuts. It is very easy to criticise when you do not have responsibility for finding the money in the budget."
