Member Article

Manchester City Council pledges an extra £100m to improve city’s roads

Roads in and around Manchester are set to benefit from a five-year maintenance programme after Manchester City Council revealed proposals to ‘dramatically increase’ investment in maintaining the city’s highways.

An extra £100m has will be invested over the next five years to bring the area’s roads back to a good standard with further commitments to bring some of the busiest roads back to ‘as new’ condition.

The funding, which the council said will help support Manchester’s growth over the next half decade and beyond, will see £80m spent on a ‘comprehensive programme’ of resurfacing and maintenance work to eliminate potholes and carry out repairs on some of the city’s blighted roads.

A further £20m will be channeled towards supporting other roads and maintenance efforts, complementing the £2m a year that has been added as a permanent addition to the Council’s highways budget.

Executive Member for the Environment, Councillor Rosa Battle, said that the council had committed to its ‘comprehensive’ programme after road improvements repeatedly topped Manchester residents demands.

She said: “We have listened to people who say they are fed up of potholes and put together this major investment programme to address this. We will ensure this work is phased over a period of time to start delivering improvements as soon as possible while minimising disruption. This is about making things better for drivers.”

Currently around 5% of Manchester’s roads are assessed as being in need of priority resurfacing work, but the Council says this could rise to as much as 62% over the next five years without further investment.

While the exact details and scope of the proposals are to be fully fleshed out over the coming weeks, the Council claims that if put into action the investment could reduce its pothole repair bill to £1.5m per year, half the current bill and a significant saving on the project £7m per year costs by 2021.

Cllr Battle added: “We recognise the vital importance of improving the condition of our roads to support the city’s continuing economic and residential growth and ensure it remains a great place to live.

“That’s why there are no reductions to highway maintenance in our proposed budget and, instead, we are planning this major investment programme which will significantly reduce the blight of potholes across the city over time and ensure high quality roads.”