Richard Benyon, Member of Parliament for Newbury, has welcomed new dedicated funding from the Government to fill nearly 1 million potholes across the UK. This includes £217,000 to fill an estimated 4,094 potholes in West Berkshire.
Local motorists will benefit from the dedicated funding after the Government announced that nearly £50 million of funding will be made available to local councils over the next 12 months. This is part of a wider move to fill 157,282 potholes across the South East, with over 100 councils in England receiving funding.
The funding has been made available to councils as part of the Government’s £250 million Pothole Action Fund included in last month’s budget, which will see over four million potholes fixed by 2020/21, and is part of the Government’s plan to invest in infrastructure to secure a better future for our economy.
The local area stands to benefit from overall road maintenance funding of almost £4 million. The Department for Transport confirmed that, ‘In total, West Berkshire will receive £3,955,000 in 2016/17 as part of the government’s £6.1 billion investment for local road maintenance by 2020/21.’
Richard Benyon has welcomed the news saying, ‘The state of the roads in and around Newbury has been an issue for some time now and remains a great source of frustration for drivers. This new funding is great news for West Berkshire. I’ve been campaigning for a long time for greater investment in road repairs, and will be encouraging the Council to make full use of their allocation locally.
‘I’m glad that the Government is investing both nationally and locally to improve the standard of our local roads. It shows that we are delivering on our commitment to invest in infrastructure to attract businesses and secure Britain’s future.’