Devon County Council is set to allocate an extra £10m for highway maintenance during the current financial year after a windfall from central government.
The proposed increase, which is due to go before the authority’s cabinet next week, will take its 2024-25 highway maintenance budget to more than £72m.
The council said it had received a better than expected settlement from the Government to help tackle an overspend on special education.
The proposed funding boost will see £7.25m for patching repairs, £2m for drainage improvements and £750,000 added to a road marking replacement programme.
A spokesperson said: ‘The extremely wet weather over the past year has inflicted a huge amount of damage on our roads so this proposed funding is very much needed and will help prevent further decline in its condition.’
The extra cash adds to £59.5m from the Department for Transport for highway maintenance.
The Cabinet report notes that this includes £23.5m from the Pothole Fund and £6.7m from ‘Network North’ funding as well as £23.5m needs-based funding and £5.9m incentive funding.
In March the council was awarded £640,00 from the Government’s Traffic Signal Obsolescence Grant and Green Light Fund. Its spending plans also include £2m of internal borrowing for a lighting upgrade.
The report notes, however, that in 2023-24 the council saw a funding boost totalling £16m from additional Pothole Fund and Network North funding.
With only the Network North top-up still in place, this means that the additional council contribution has effectively replaced £9.4m of Pothole Fund cash.
A graphic from the report showing the £10m on top of DfT funding
The report also notes that the Department for Transport funding is worth around £6m less than it would have been if it had been increased in line with inflation over the past 10 years. The total funding for 2024/25 is slightly above that inflation point but only because Devon put in the extra £10m from the special education settlement.
The report states: ‘For many years funding restrictions have seen a growing reliance on preventative and short-term less expensive treatments, however such treatments, although providing an excellent short to mid-life solution, cannot be used indefinitely.’
