Northern Ireland's infrastructure minister, Liz Kimmins, has launched a £7.85m Winter Recovery Road Fund to help tackle the impact of ‘recent severe weather conditions' across the Department for Infrastructure's (DfI) road network.
Minister Kimmins said: ‘I am all too aware that the recent storms, prolonged rainfall, ice and snow have all taken their toll on our roads, and I have been working to identify and secure funding to address the problem. Today, I can confirm that I have established a £7.85m Winter Recovery Road Fund to allow an urgent and direct focus on repairing the surface defects which are causing the most concern.'
This fund has been announced after Northern Ireland recorded 49,000 defects in just the last three months, which the minister stated is close to half the total for the whole of the previous year.
Whilst she did note that the scale of the damage meant that its likely not going to be possible to address every issue ‘in the short-term', she added that officials have been asked to ‘explore every avenue' that will allow the department to maximise its available workforce capacity to ensure it is doing as much as it can ‘as quickly as possible'.
The minister concluded that this new short-term boost ‘will allow additional repairs on the worst of our weather-impacted roads' and will be supported by the continued normal reporting of road defects and routine inspections so that the department can ‘ensure the safety of the travelling public'.
The DfI has been approached for comment.
