Council would need £102m to fully restore highways

7 hours ago

Joe GerrardLocal Democracy Reporting Service

News image — A council report stated communities, businesses and visitors continued to expect more investment, placing pressure on maintenance teams to do works efficiently, on time and to budget

City of York Council A person is working on repairing a road. They are visible from the hips down, wearing high visibility orange clothing, yellow gloves and dark work boots. There is a bright orange temporary barrier behind them, and they're using a long handled tool to level out the new tarmac that has been laid. There is a grassy area to the right of the works. — A council report stated communities, businesses and visitors continued to expect more investment, placing pressure on maintenance teams to do works efficiently, on time and to budget

The cost of fixing York's roads and footpaths has been estimated at £102m, according to a council report.

City of York Council is responsible for around 500 miles (800km) of roads and 775 miles (1,250km) of paths and cycleways as well as thousands of highway gullies, street lights and other infrastructure and assets.

The true cost of the work was outlined as the Labour-run authority outlined a £16.5m highways maintenance programme for 2026-27.

Transport spokesperson Kate Ravilious said roads and footpaths required significant investment and the money pledged was 50% more than last year's maintenance funding.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, funding for the works in 2026-27 is made up of £8.8m set aside in the council's budget for this financial year and a York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority grant.

A total of £10.7m has been set aside for works on highways, with £1m earmarked for drainage, £550,000 for York's walls, £578,000 to replace street lights and £1.072m for bridge maintenance.

Ravilious said while the money set aside for 2026-27 was not enough to fix everything it was a significant investment.

Officials stated in their report on the programme that while they recognised the importance of keeping all roads and paths safe, limited resources meant works had to be prioritised.

The report stated: "We have identified that there is a £102m backlog in highway asset maintenance.

"The methodology used to prioritise investment obviously varies between the various asset types but in all cases, the approach to deciding where to spend our money is risk-based.

"Having assessed the investment needs for each asset group, we consider this in the wider context of the whole highways service as we endeavour to undertake the right repairs at the right time in the lifecycle of all our assets to prolong their life.

"As such our investments target not only those assets in the poorest condition but others whose condition would deteriorate significantly without investment."

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