On the road to recovery with £82M

08 February 2007

Councillors in Leeds are set to approve a £37M cash injection for a five-year, £82M plan to reduce the city council’s large backlog of road repairs.
The programme – billed as the city’s ‘biggest ever’ – is made up of £63M from the council’s capital resources and £19M in prudential or unsupported borrowing. A target date of 2010/11 has been set for clearing the majority of the backlog.
Cllr Andrew Carter, leader of the city council, claimed: ‘Residents will finally begin to see a real improvement in the state of the city’s roads.’
Money saved by reduced insurance premiums – which the authority says is down to the effect improved repairs since 2004/05 have had on the number of highway accident claims – has been used to fund the latest £4.2M in prudential borrowing. The authority stressed that the aim is clearing the majority of the backlog. A spokeswoman said: ‘There will still be isolated minor defects – an approach supported by the Audit Commission in a recent best value review.’
Leeds’ overall ambition is to ensure that all its best value performance indicators are in the upper quartile among the eight ‘core cities’ by 2010/11. Councillors are also set to agree a further £2.6M investment in the city’s six-year programme to adopt private roads. The authority plans to repair and adopt 15-19 streets every year and eventually, all 1,600 private roads – a programme which could take until the next century to complete (Surveyor, 11 August 2005).
l The bus rapid transit system drawn up for Leeds following the Government’s spiking of its tram proposals would cost up to £300M and have a cost-benefit ratio of 2.5:1. Metro, the West Yorkshire passenger transport executive, hopes the transit will be ‘a national bus transit showcase’.

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On the road to recovery with £82M

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