Councils across Yorkshire have spent almost £6 million improving roads for the Tour de France.
According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) councils have ploughed money into resurfacing, road strengthening, signage and other improvements.
Freedom of Information requests revealed local authorities had budgeted for £5,950,000.
Councils told RICS that around three quarters of the planned expenditure, or £4.5m, has been brought forward from future years, while several other councils had prioritised work on the route over other areas as part of their regular highway maintenance and improvement programmes.
The largest investment has been made by North Yorkshire County Council, which covers Harrogate, where Stage 1 terminates on Saturday, July 5. North Yorkshire County Council spent £4.2m on improvement work, including £3.8m of work that was budgeted to be undertaken between 2015 and 2018.
In West Yorkshire, Kirklees, Bradford and Leeds had a combined total of up to £950,000 while Calderdale Council has undertaken £600,000 of work entirely brought forward from future years.
Kirklees Council did a lot of work on Chapel Hill, Lockwood Road and Woodhead Road as part of their Tour preparations.
Click below to see the route of the tour through Calderdale, Huddersfield and Holmfirth.
They also worked on road surfaces near the Ainley Top roundabout, where a big project with the Highways Agency was completed two weeks ago.
Rob Hindle, chairman of RICS Yorkshire & Humber Regional Board, said: “While we welcome the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire and all the economic benefits it will bring, we certainly hope that by bringing forward so much work on Yorkshire’s roads to before the race, the region won’t be left without adequate maintenance for years to come.
“We don’t want a feast today if it means a famine tomorrow.”
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