Council underspends budget on potholes and road repairs

Brighton & Hove City Council said the money came in the form of a “capital grant” from the Department for Transport

A £6 million budget to fill potholes and repair roads was underspent, a report to Brighton & Hove City councillors said.

Nigel Manvell, the city council's chief financial officer, said the money came in the form of a "capital grant" from the Department for Transport (DfT).

He said the council was unable to spend the whole grant by the end of the 2023-24 financial year due to an issue with its capacity to carry out repairs.

He said the money will be carried forward and "will be spent".

The exchanges took place at the audit and standards committee meeting at Hove Town Hall, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Labour councillor Birgit Miller asked whether the grant would have to be handed back to the government.

Mr Manvell said: “There have been some challenges around that [capacity] and challenges around supplies to undertake the repairs.

“I’m assuming there are some delays in using up the grant as fast as they would like. We do not lose the grant. It will carry forward and it will be spent.”

Green councillor Pete West said: “There’s certainly no shortage of holes to fill but there may be a shortage of people to fill them.”

Mr Manvell said there was no time limit for spending the road repair funding in the way that there was for some government grants.

He said any unspent money from 2022-23 would have been carried forward into the capital programme for the 2023-24 financial year.

Councillor Trevor Muten, chair of the Transport and Sustainability committee, said: "All funding available for highways maintenance and pothole repair has been spent within the financial year to which it was allocated."

Clarification: This story was updated from an earlier version following updated information.