Secretary of State for Transport (): I am pleased to inform the
House that my Department last week published details of the very
significant £8.3 billion extra funding for local road resurfacing
which will lead to a long-term, unprecedented transformation in
the condition of our highways. Local highway authorities across
England are set to benefit from the biggest ever road resurfacing
programme to improve local roads.
The funding is part of the Network North plan to improve journeys
for all and provides long-term certainty to local authorities. In
keeping with the Prime Minister’s commitment, all monies
previously allocated for the North and Midlands will still be
allocated there, with monies from savings at Euston being spent
across England, with the funding broken down as follows:
- £3.3 billion for the North of England
- £2.2 billion for the Midlands
- £2.8 billion for East, South East (including London) and
South West England.
This funding is in addition to local transport funding from the
last Spending Review and additional to what local transport
authorities were expecting in future. Allocated across the next
eleven years, it will represent a more than two-thirds increase
in DfT support for local roads. Fifteen percent of the funding
will be allocated at a later date to allow a degree of
flexibility over how best to support highway maintenance
initiatives across England.
£150 million of the new funding is being made available in each
of the financial years 2023/24 and 2024/25, with the lion’s share
to follow over the remainder of the eleven-year period. This
provides time for local authorities and their supply chains to
ramp up to deliver an increase in funding of this significance.
Details of what each local highway authority will receive are
published on gov.uk.
To ensure that the funding delivers a transformational
improvement in the condition of local roads and to allow a
greater degree of public scrutiny over how it is spent, the
Department is introducing new reporting requirements on local
authorities. These include that all local authorities receiving
this funding should:
- publish by March 2024 a summary of the additional resurfacing
work they will deliver with the new funding over the next 2
years.
- thereafter publish quarterly reports summarising what
additional work they have done and which roads have been
resurfaced;
- publish later in 2024/25 a long-term plan for their use of
the full 11-year funding and the transformation it will deliver.
This is transformative funding which directly demonstrates the
benefits that will be felt right across England for all road
users, who will enjoy smoother, faster and safer trips, funded
from the difficult but necessary decision to cancel HS2 Phase 2.
