City road repair works cost tops £250m

A city has a £250m backlog of pothole and footpath repair works.

New estimates by Newcastle City Council suggest it would cost about £251m to return the region's roads and pavements to an "acceptable standard".

The council said the funding it received for road maintenance failed to match the cost of all required work.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said the North East Combined Authority (NECA) was receiving more than £21m this year to fix its roads.

Liberal Democrat councillor Wendy Taylor said in a meeting last week she was "fed up" with the state of the city's roads, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"I get very frustrated with the number of issues I discuss with highways officers and months later nothing has really happened," she said.

The local authority said due to the lack of government funding to tackle the issue it had to prioritise the most urgent repairs.

According to most recent figures, Newcastle City Council made 18,179 repairs in the 2023-24 financial year at a cost of £385,272 – compared with only 12,834 in the previous 12 months.

Earlier this year the government announced £1.6bn would be handed to local authorities to fix potholes.

Announcing the new funds, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told councils in March: "Get on with the job, put that money to use and prove they're delivering for their communities."

But only £21.7m is coming to north-east England, less than a tenth of Newcastle's need alone.

The DfT said: "This is just the start – the government will also be investing a further £24bn to upgrade motorways and local roads across the country, delivering lasting infrastructure Britain can rely on."

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