Council agrees funding formula for extra road maintenance works

16th March 2012

The Highland Council's Transport Environmental and Community Services Committee has agreed a formula for spending an extra �2 million in the new financial year commencing on 1 April on road maintenance, including filling pot holes and drainage projects.

The spending supplements the �15.2 million already being spent by the Council on road maintenance and �5 million on winter maintenance.

At its budget setting meeting in February, the Council agreed to dedicate a one-off additional �2 million in 2012-13 to road maintenance.

The proposed formula will see each of the 22 Council wards receive a base sum of �25,000. The balance will be divided between the wards, based on the mileage (kilometres) within each ward. While the large urban wards, such as North West Sutherland and Wester Ross, which together have 25.9% of the Council's road mileage, will receive the highest financial allocation, the formula ensures that the urban wards with relatively small road mileages but higher traffic levels, will receive a higher allocation per kilometre. Inverness West for example, which has 45.3 km of roads, will receive �767 per km compared to �242 per km in North West Sutherland which has 942 km of roads.

The Committee also agreed that the formula should be reviewed for future allocations of additional funding for road maintenance.

In Caithness the allocation is as follows -
Thurso �36,075
Wick �36,785
Landward Caithness �164,355

All area allocations can be seen on the Highland council web site follwoing agenda papers for 15th March 2012 at
http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourcouncil/committees/strategiccommittees/transportenvironmentalandcommunityservices/