If You're Lucky Leeds' Roads Might Stop Getting Worse!! (Leeds Liberal Democrats)

Leeds Liberal Democrats <info@leedslibdems.org.uk>

If You're Lucky Leeds' Roads Might Stop Getting Worse!!

September 3, 2003 12:00 AM

True Story behind Council's neglect of Leeds' roads comes out at meeting ..

Councillor Mark Harris, Leader of the Opposition Liberal Democrat Group on Leeds City Council, has described the ruling Labour Group's attempts to "spin" a report to today's meeting of the Council's Executive Board as a major advance in tackling the state of roads in Leeds as "ridiculous".

Cllr Harris said "The £14.3 million for road improvements is no advance on money agreed at the Council's Budget meeting in February. At that time we said it wasn't enough to start tackling the long term problems of the state of roads in Leeds, and so it proved when Officers confirmed the money would do no more than stop deterioration over the next couple of years."

"The backlog of road repairs has now reached £63 million across the City as a whole, and as the Highways Maintenance Plan states 'we are very unlikely to meet the 2010 target (elimination of the backlog of road repairs) with current funding levels'. Lib Dems recognised this was the case years ago, and is one of the reasons we called for an extra £1 million cash to be invested in road repairs, and £750,000 further savings for additional investment at the time of the Budget, a call which the Council leadership rejected. At the rate of current investment it will still take at least 50 years to clear the backlog of road repairs in the City."

"All of this is bad news for the City - good roads are vital for the economic health of the City, as well as providing local people with a safe means of travel. The backlog of work has grown greatly in the last few years, Labour now has no-one else to blame for the problem."