Hampshire County Council to receive extra £6m for pothole repair from spring budget

AN extra £6m in government funding will be spent on repairing Hampshire's potholes after an "extremely challenging" winter.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced a further £200m for the national Pothole Fund as part of his spring budget, under which Hampshire County Council will receive £5.95m.

Cllr Nick Adams-King, the county council's Conservative cabinet member for universal services, said he welcomed the funding, which would tackle a "steep increase in road defects" across the county.

"We know that the condition of our roads and footways is a key priority for residents," he said.

"Our highways teams, in partnership with our contractor Milestone, have been working continuously to keep our network in a safe condition.

"Over the winter period, we have drafted in extra resources to repair more road defects following a dramatic and sustained increase in reported issues.

"This intense spike in demand, alongside soaring inflation, has forced us to make tough decisions about where to invest our resources, including diverting money away from other highway activities."

However, Liberal Democrat Cllr David Harrison, for Totton and Marchwood, dismissed the move as just a "good budget headline".

"Why doesn’t the government simply provide local authorities with the money to do the job they are supposed to do anyway?" he said.

"There are some 190,000 miles of road in the United Kingdom, so £200m will be spread very thinly."

HCC manages 5,000 miles of road across the county, and over the last three months said it has repaired 16,748 potholes and other road defects.

In addition to the annual maintenance funding from the Department for Transport, the authority invests £10m each year in Operation Resilience to make roads and footways more resistant to weather extremes and heavy use.