Gloucestershire County Council is to spend an extra £2m on highways projects this year, following a £10m underspend in its 2023-24 budget.
The council said the underspend was partly made up of £4.41m of additional electricity income generated by the Energy from Waste facility.
Dom Morris, cabinet member for highways, said: ‘I'm delighted that our prudent financial management has allowed us to invest an extra £2m in highways. This will help us to make a wide range of improvements, including maintaining eight Find and Fix gangs and refreshing lining across the network to improve journeys for everyone.
‘We're continuing to deliver on our four-year commitment to invest £100m on the county's roads and are determined to create better journeys for everyone in Gloucestershire.'
Although the highway authority described the spending as ‘investment', the projects where the cash will be spent are nearly all reactive maintenance. They are:
- £500,000 to maintain eight Find and Fix gangs throughout the year
- £500,000 for refreshing lining across the network
- £300,000 towards the Cheltenham Spa station cycle access ramp project
- £200,000 for further vegetation (grass and tree) cutting gangs to improve safety on the network
- £200,000 towards maintaining footways in town centres
- £100,000 increase to the schools safety programme
- £100,000 to refresh zebra and other crossings across the network
- £100,000 to deliver the Merrywalks bus station resurfacing.
The majority of the remaining £8m will be put into general reserves, although £2.41m will be used ‘to address some financial risks arising within the current year's budget'.
The rest will be retained as reserves, which a council report said ‘addresses the external audit finding that the Council's level of General Reserves is below average when compared to other county councils'.
The report also noted that at the end of 2023-24, savings of £15.891m had been delivered, representing 75% of the annual target of £21.101m.
