You Can Have Road Repairs and Frontline Services (Leeds Liberal Democrats)

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

You Can Have Road Repairs and Frontline Services

April 13, 2005 9:56 PM

Says Cllr Councillor Kabeer Hussain (Hyde Park and Woodhouse) criticised the previous administration Leeds City Council at today's meeting of Full Council for their failure to deal with the £60m backlog of highways maintenance in the City.

Cllr Hussain said in Council "Last June the new administration inherited a £60m backlog of road repairs from our predecessors. As Cllr Wakefield proudly boasted in the press recently, reducing this backlog was not seen by them as a priority. It is a priority for the new administration though, as shown by the extra money included in the Capital Programme."

"Because they ignored the problem for year after year, the state of some of the roads in Leeds - especially in some of our inner-city areas - is appalling. Without a huge capital investment the backlog would never be cleared - that's why I'm delighted that we are putting £8m of Capital towards the problem this year alone, with more to come."

"Highways maintenance is a priority - by letting the condition of our roads deteriorate to such serious levels the previous administration sent out a clear message to the people of Leeds that they did not care about the condition of their neighbourhoods. The new administration does care, that's why we're undertaking this massive programme of repairs as well as providing essential frontline services."

Cllr Hussain added later "I'm staggered that Cllr Wakefield has tried to portray the extra money we're providing to improve the roads as being at the expense of social services. The truth is that more money than ever before is going towards Social Services in Leeds over the coming year."

"The previous administration's disastrous management of schemes such as Landmark Leeds meant that they felt they couldn't afford to clear the repairs backlog as well as maintain frontline Social Services. The difference now is the new administration doesn't squander it's Capital budget on grandiose projects in the way that it's predecessors did - so we have been able to find the funds to tackle a problem that everyone in Leeds wants us to deal with."