Kirklees Council pledge £4m to tackle potholes and street lighting

Feb 12 2010 By Neil Atkinson

MORE than £4m will be spent on repairing the pothole-ravaged roads of Kirklees.

Councillors last night pledged another £3.5m on top of £600,000 already promised to repair local roads which have been significantly damaged during the winter.

And in another massive boost to road-users, it was confirmed the Department of Transport had agreed a staggering £66m funding package to pay for better street lighting across Kirklees.

The cash will be used to upgrade many of the 51,000 street lights across the district.

The cash for potholes will come from council reserves and will be welcomed by thousands of motorist negotiating their way around hundreds of holes.

The roads have deteriorated since the harsh weather of December and January.

Clr Peter McBride said the cash would come from reserves and from planned savings and would go towards repairing the damage caused to much of the Kirklees road network by the harshest winter for 20 years.

The snow and ice in almost a month of plunging temperatures wreaked havoc on roads.

Water seeping into cracks, froze and as the ice expanded, it caused the road surface to crack and break up.

Ten pothole gangs are currently assessing and repairing pothole damage and have already repaired about 3,200 holes in the last three weeks.

There are more than 1,900 km (about 1,200 miles) of roads in Kirklees

and a significant proportion are hilly.

Clr McBride said: “Repair work on the roads to date has cost around £90,000, but winter is far from over.

“I want to reassure road users that we are making sure funds are available to deal with the problems being caused by freezing weather and we are committed to tackling the situation as quickly as possible.

“The public have been hugely inconvenienced by five weeks of ice and snow plus the consequent disruption to the bin service.