Rachel Reeves to pledge £500m more for fixing roads and ending pothole crisis
RACHEL Reeves is to pledge £500million more for fixing roads and ending the pothole crisis.
The Chancellor will bring the total amount to mending highways in England this year to £1.6 billion as part of her Budget plans.
The commitment means Labour are expected to exceed their manifesto plans to fix a million more potholes a year.
The cash sum is understood to be nearly 50 per cent more money than road-fixing promises made by the previous government for this financial year.
Drivers will be helped by the cash boost after a survey showed they spend an average £460 to fix car issues caused by potholes.
Figures from the AA reveal that have had 380,000 call-outs in the first six months of the year relating to the menace.
Costs for drivers add up as punctures, wheel damage and broken suspension springs are common faults after an encounter with a pothole.
Ahead of the July election, Sir Keir Starmer recognised the importance of getting the pothole problem sorted.
He said: “It is a plague.
“It’s across the country.
“We are going to fix it.”
Ministers see the additional cash as helping millions of working people getting to work and helping them keep cash in their pocket.
The extra money is also being seen as reducing the number of crashes and injuries on our roads.
Whitehall insiders believe it will then make it safer for people to cycle and walk on.
Funding will be devolved to local authorities from April next year with allocations yet to be revealed.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will also be given sums to deal with the problem.
Decisions in Wednesday’s Budget are being seen through the lens of helping working people and grow the economy.
The overall cost of the economy according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research is in the region of £14 billion.
Ex-PM Rishi Sunak re-directed more than £8 billion cash from the cancelled Hs2 high-speed train project to fix more than 5,000 miles of roads such was the scale of the problem.
Jake Cousens, head of road policy at The AA, recently said: “You don’t have to drive too far to find a pothole on a local road, it’s a state of crisis.”