Spend on roads reduced by €36m

THE GOVERNMENT has announced an overall spending cut of some €36 million on regional and local roads, but says a breakdown of allocations by county is not ready for publication.

Regional and local roads – which account for 94 per cent of the network – will attract grants amounting to €375 million from the exchequer in 2011. The figure is down from €411 million in 2010, and is a drop of some €232 million on the 2009 spend of €607 million.

Minister for Transport Pat Carey yesterday said the priority was “to protect investment and target resources to urgently required repairs due to severe weather”. He added that the grants would be augmented by local authority spending of their own resources.

Fine Gael transport spokesman Simon Coveney accused the Government of a lack of transparency which he attributed to the upcoming general election.

“Regardless of the general election, we should know the breakdown of roads funding,” he said. “People need to know . . . how much they can individually spend on repairing the roads. Cork, for example, has always done badly in road allocations.”

According to the department, the overall allocation will include:

€55 million for maintenance and strengthening works for which local authorities have complete discretion in road selection;

€27.2 million for urban authorities for rehabilitation and maintenance of roads and pavements. The authorities have complete discretion in the selection of projects;

• €10 million for winter maintenance which may be used for treating roads in cold weather;
• €31.9 million for specific projects (including bridges);
• €20.1 million for strategic regional and local roads projects;
• €6 million for low-cost safety improvement works;
• €5 million for local improvements scheme;
• €4.9 million for regional road sign-posting programme;
• €2.45 million for bridge inspections of regional road bridges.

Mr Carey said the overall allocation represented an average investment of €31.25 million a month on regional and local roads.

He said he had reintroduced the restoration improvement programme to refocus priority investment to areas that most needed it.

Under this grant category €150 million is being provided to local authorities.