The Lib Dem Budget - Roads and Weeds
February 12, 2007 12:00 AM
By Cllr Bob Johnston in County Council
By Cllr Bob Johnston in County Council
In our budget we are attempting to do something about a real historical problem.
We have excellent officers dealing with highway maintenance in the County Council and they use the budget allocated to them wisely. But they have only 50% of the budget available to comparable authorities, and this underfunding dates back many, many years. In those years, to resurface every minor road would have taken 800 years; now I calculate that it would take nearly 1000 - a timescale more leisurely than the pharaohs building the pyramids. We have done our bit to repair that damage by putting in £1.5m this year for road, pavement and cyclepath maintenance and £500,000 each year thereafter.
One very short-sighted measure in the Cabinet budget was to reduce the weed control budget last year, and not to replace it this. Plants such as buddleia are infesting pavements and roads across the county; this is very destructive and now is the time to do something about it. Already pavements and even roads are beginning to break up under the pressure. If it is left another year, well you ain't seen nothing yet! This must be one of the most star-crossed decisions ever made. We put in £300,000 specifically for weed control, therefore, as well as the massive increase to the maintenance budget mentioned earlier.
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