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Mayor lobbies Transport Minister over
funding to repair potholes
THE Mayor of
Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has met with a Government minister, Patrick McLoughlin,
to lobby for more funding to deal with the potholes in the City's roads. Their
meeting followed a recent announcement by the Mayor that an extra £3m is to be
spent on repairing potholes in the City's roads up to the summer. This is in
addition to the £80 million City Council investment over the next 5 years to
improve the main routes in the City. However, it is estimated that a backlog of
£269m worth of road repairs has built up over several years and the Council only
receives around £3m a year in government funding to tackle the problem.
"I wanted to make the minister aware of the scale of the problem we face and
what we are doing to try and deal with it. I even showed him photographs of some
of the worst examples. He recognises the issues and It was a positive
conversation. While normally we always try and find our own solution to issues
which face us, such is the condition of our roads and the amount of funding it
will take to bring them up to standard I think it was very useful to discuss
this issue face to face with the Secretary of State and his senior transport
official. I told him that any assistance he could give to support the £80m we
have put into our major roads will go a long way towards solving the problem and
while he explained his own budget has also been reduced by £1bn, he understands
our need and gave me a commitment to look at every possibility he can. I am
encouraged that he has also asked his Local Transport Director, Graham
Pendlebury, to come to the City so we can show him the extent of the problem.'
The Minister has also agreed to visit Liverpool in the near future when we can
discuss not only this issue but other major transport concerns and, in
particular, the HS2 and HS3 rail links and their importance to the City Region
and Merseyside." said Mayor Anderson.
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