Council injects £2 million into road maintenance

4th February 2012

The Highland Council will be asked to agree an additional £2m for road repairs when it meets next Thursday (9 February).

Councillor John Laing, the Chair of TECS Services, said that the extra funding, recommended by the Administration for 2012-13, would be used to address the additional damage to the road network following successive winters when we experienced prolonged periods of very low temperatures, which resulted in damage to roads throughout Scotland.

He said: "The Scottish Government and the Council have both provided additional funding for roads over the past two years, and this is the third year that the Council has put more money into repairing our road network.

"The additional funding will be targeted at carrying out structural road repairs and increasing the level of drainage maintenance, and we will be employing local contractors to supplement our own workforce.

"The additional funding is a very welcome, and while we have seen an overall reduction in the staffing level across TEC Services, this has been achieved through natural wastage and we have managed to protect the number of staff employed on front line services such as winter maintenance service and road repairs."