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Addressing potholes and drainage big feature of council’s approved budget
13/02/2025
Councillors approve Lib Dem budget with Labour amendment
by Esme Kenney, Local Democracy Reporter
A large pool of funding is being invested to address issues with potholes and drainage on roads across the county.
Motorists in Oxfordshire will be glad to hear the county council announced nearly £40m will be spent on potholes, improving drainage and surface dressing after the authority’s budget for 2025/26 was passed.
Potholes have plagued drivers in all parts of the county with one pothole near the Esso garage on the A40 at Eynsham taking out three vehicles at once last month.
Many motorists also complained about “wheel buster” potholes on the B4019 between Coleshill and Badbury Woods on Highworth Road.
A light-hearted sign was even put up next to the A41 near Bicester in January stating ‘Oxon Highways presents: Pothole World’.
The county council said it repaired 41,000 potholes in 2024 and has now committed funding to fix road surfaces across the county following a meeting at County Hall on Tuesday (February 11).
Other key features of the budget include more than £1m in funding for children with SEND, £1m for investing in railways and £3.6m towards improving flooding measures, with the council agreeing to clean gullies annually.
Council tax will rise by 4.99 per cent, the maximum amount councils can increase it by without a referendum, which will come into effect on April 1 this year.
This means that Band D properties will pay £90.84 extra in council tax in the coming year, amounting to £1,911.40 per year.
The funding for highways maintenance is part of a two-year long highways maintenance programme.
It also includes £11.1m for delivering the Watlington Relief Road, £1.8m for active travel measures to encourage walking and cycling, £16.2m for repairing and maintaining bridges and £4 million for improvements in road safety.
The price of joint parking and bus fare ticket at the Park & Ride will also remain the same this year.
The council spent more than £3m on repairing potholes in the last financial year alone.
Dan Levy, county council cabinet member for finance, said: “We are pleased to be able to spend more on important services that people value ranging from adult social care for children and adults to highway maintenance.
“There is lots of good news for people all over the county and from all backgrounds in the budget we have set.”
The council is run by a Liberal Democrat Green minority administration, and the budget was passed with an amendment from the Labour & Co-operative group.
Labour’s changes to original budget included an extra £1m for repairing pavements and cycleways, £1.5m for supporting SEND children in early years settings, £2m to improve safeguarding for children at the earliest stage and faster delivery of new breakfast clubs for primary schools across the county.
Councillor Liz Brighouse, leader of the Labour & Co-operative group, said: “Next year, Oxfordshire will benefit from significant additional funding from the new Labour government, including £23.9 million to fix our roads and pavements.
“Our amendment builds on this funding by providing additional frontline support for children with SEND and vulnerable families”
Councillor Eddie Reeves, leader of the Conservative group, said that the amendment showed that “there is not a great deal of difference” between the Lib Dem and Labour groups.
In November, the county council said that they would face a £25 million shortfall, but the money they received from central government in December meant that they could address this shortfall.
During the meeting, leader of the county council Liz Leffman said that the increase in central government funding was dependent on a 4.99 per cent rise in council tax.
Two per cent of the council tax rise is earmarked for adult social care provision.
In the final vote on the amended budget, 44 councillors voted for it, while 13 abstained, with no-one voting against it.
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam