£1m boost to road patching in East Sussex

East Sussex County Council has committed an extra £1m to road patching, but acknowledged it would cost more than £300m to bring all its roads up to scratch.

The £1m from the council’s capital budget will enable 400 patching upgrades over the next year. Some roads will then be dressed with new surfaces.

The extra spend is on top of £1m already committed to patching this year and annual spending of £2.5m on pothole repairs.

East Sussex said its additional investment on roads over the past three years had reached £22.5m.

But the council said it would cost more than £300m to bring all its 2,000 miles of roads up to perfect condition.

Lead member for transport and environment Claire Dowling said: ‘We spend far more on our roads than we receive from government because we know how important the network is for connectivity and the economy.

‘We don’t have a network of motorways and dual carriageways that benefit from significant national investment, and we are working hard to draw the Government’s attention to counties like ours that have a huge number of unclassified roads to maintain.’

This article first appeared on localgov.co.uk.