Council Leader responds to MP: pothole cash falls far short of what is needed
03/04/2025
Liz Leffman says an investment of £60m per year is needed to bring the highway network up to a suitable standard
The Leader of Oxfordshire County Council has responded to a letter from Banbury’s MP telling her the authority needed to “up its game” in dealing with potholes on the county’s highways.
Oxfordshire is set to receive an additional £8.9m of government funding to deal with the problem, but to get the full amount the council must publish annual progress reports. The extra money will take the total funding for road work up to around £33m.
Councillor Liz Leffman has written to Sean Woodcock acknowledging the government’s additional money will go some way towards fixing local roads, but said it “still falls far short of the funding needed to maintain our roads and is not enough to prevent continued deterioration of the county’s road network.”
Mrs Leffman said the council were grateful for the extra money but warned Mr Woodcock that far more was needed. She said: “An investment of £48m [per annum] is needed to prevent further deterioration and overall, an investment of £60m per year is needed to bring the highway network up to a suitable standard.
“Central government grants fall well short of this, but the county council has invested and continues to invest in its roads above central grants and in the new financial year will be committing £48 million to highway maintenance.”
She added that whilst fixing potholes might solve some of the problems now, a more far-reaching solution was needed. Mrs Leffman wrote: “this is not a long term solution to sorting out the deteriorated state of our roads, and we would urge policymakers to prioritise funding for sustainable road management, rather than focussing on simply repairing potholes.”
Published: by the Banbury FM News Team
