Tories Cut £5m spending from Highways - putting Public Safety at Risk

10.26.46pm GMT Thu 14th Jan 2010

Tories in control of Somerset County Council's budget for the coming year have withdrawn £5 million from the vital Highways Repair and Maintenance Programme and also Transport. This comes at a time when severe weather has hit us for the second year in a row and potholes in our roads have already doubled from where they were a year ago. Liberal Democrat councillors' fears were not allayed by promises to monitor the effect of the £5 million cut, on public safety.

The Tories protested that they have made contract savings for Highways to enable them to take this money away but the Lib Dems would argue that this should surely have been re-invested in the service - in the public's best interests - not grabbed as a saving.

Important improvements and upgrading to traffic signals and street lighting will cease to be carried out, allowing a backlog of work to build up over the next two to three years. The Conservative councillors who were questioned at this morning's scrutiny meeting were those who criticised the Liberal Democrat administration for capital investment in these areas, whilst also fighting their election campaign on maintaining the roads to a better standard.

Cllr. Sam Crabb, Shadow spokesman for Resources commented on the budget cuts:

"The irony is that if the Tories were to keep investment at the rate already set in the Lib Dems' budget plan, it would only have cost them the same amount in interest as the new Cabinet Office they've just set up for themselves.

But more importantly, we are extremely concerned about the safety to the public, especially motor-cyclists and cyclists, who often come across potholes when it's too late to avoid them. We will closely monitor the backlog of maintenance work to street lighting and traffic signals because, as any householder knows, if you don't fix the roof when it's leaking, you will only store up trouble for yourself."