City to miss out on £6.7m pothole fund due to PFI

A £6.7m government fund for pothole repairs in South Yorkshire will not be used to repair roads in Sheffield because the council has a contract with a private firm.

On Friday, government transport minister Heidi Alexander announced a £1.6 billion investment in roads in England, with South Yorkshire to receive £6,733,000.

But Sheffield City Council has a 25-year, £2.2bn contract with infrastructure firm Amey, which covers all aspects of highways maintenance.

Councillor Tim Huggan said he was "astounded" when he found out the news at a meeting of the council's waste and street scene policy committee on Friday.

When told at the meeting the city would not benefit, he said: "You mean the money goes to Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster and not to us?"

A Sheffield City Council spokesman said the Streets Ahead highways maintenance contract with Amey was being delivered through a private finance initiative (PFI), drawing on investment from the private sector.

He added, because Sheffield's public roads are maintained under a PFI deal for maintenance activities, "the council therefore does not qualify for additional funding from central government".

This also applied to funding released when the HS2 rail contract was scrapped.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the Amey contract, which runs until 2037, was discussed at an extraordinary meeting on Friday.

Peter Bamfield, who manages the contract for Amey, said the company assumes the risk to maintain roads when it signs a contract with a council, so the city would not see the government roads investment.

Councillor Mike Chaplin said Sheffield had been named "pothole city" in the national media prior to signing the PFI contract in 2012 but the city had now been praised as having the fifth best road conditions in the country.

He said: "There are a lot of authorities in the country with a lot of potholes much worse than we've got in Sheffield. It's understandable that the money would go to the worst areas."

According to a transport committee report, a steering group - including representatives from Amey - was set up this year to review the PFI contract and identify areas of improvement.

The report said: "Sheffield has changed significantly over the last 12-15 years.

"There have been changes to the city's demographics, geographical and economic shifts, the impacts of environmental issues are being felt more often and severely and technology through innovation has also moved on significantly since the start of the contract.

"Although we still have one of the best highway networks in the country, the perception and customer experience over the past few years does not always reflect this."

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