£25m for maintenance on major Welsh roads

A £25m maintenance programme across major roads in Wales has been approved.

The plan, announced earlier this year by the Welsh Government, will fund 22 projects across Wales’ strategic road network and is intended to improve over 100km of road and ‘help its future resilience’ by fixing and preventing around 30,000 potholes.

The programme of works includes two bridge schemes to repair seven bridges, 18 resurfacing projects and two footway programmes covering 10 community locations throughout Wales. This includes:

• M4 Bridge Deck refurbishments for five bridges between junctions 37-38
• A470 Caersws resurfacing, fixing, and preventing over 1000 potholes over 3.4 km
• A494 Mold Bypass resurfacing, fixing, and preventing over 1400 potholes over 4.9km

As well as this, tens of thousands of pothole repairs could be funded through a local government borrowing initiative, enabling councils to unlock £120m to accelerate local road repairs.

The Welsh Government has spent more than £81m on resurfacing around 321km of roads on the trunk network across Wales since 2021. In addition, the forecasted spend for 2025-26 will bring the total to £118m by the end of this Senedd term - with the money used on more than 500km of roads.

Cabinet secretary for transport and North Wales, Ken Skates, said: ‘Fixing our roads is a key priority. The comprehensive programme of works that are being delivered as part of our £25m investment will help improve the future resilience of our strategic roads network and prevent potholes.

‘I am pleased to hear that some of this work has already started with more to follow in the coming months. I look forward to seeing some of the end results.’