Lincolnshire roads need more money for repairs, says council

Lincolnshire County Council said people could report potholes and other issues using the FixMyStreet app

Councillors and motorists are calling for more government funding to repair Lincolnshire's roads.

Last year, the government cut Lincolnshire County Council's road maintenance funds by £12m.

County leaders say the 25% budget reduction means roads may not receive the required repairs, leaving thousands of potholes waiting to be fixed.

The government said the county had received more than £116m to cover road maintenance between 2022 and 2025.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Councillor Martin Hill, leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said: "We would very much welcome any additional funds for our road maintenance needs in the county.

"With 5,500 miles of roads across a largely rural county to look after, we acutely understand how important their condition is to everyone."

Mr Hill added this year more than £90m would be spent on Lincolnshire's highways network, with £19m coming from the council's resources to bridge the funding gap.

The council's Fix Our Funds to Fix Our Roads campaign has been collecting people's experiences of how they have been affected by poor road conditions in Lincolnshire.

Nikita Sheppard wrote: "The roads in Holland Fen are seriously dangerous. The whole [of] Kirton Drove needs completely renewing. My neighbour wrote her car off twice because of the state of the road.

"My partner has also broken and dislocated both arms due to the roads in Holland Fen and has still got to have more extensive surgery on them."

Josh Smith, 27, said: "I'm fuming given how much council tax, income tax and road tax I pay, it should be much better."

In a statement to the BBC, the Department for Transport said: "It's the responsibility of local authorities to maintain their local highway networks, and to help them do that we're investing more than £5bn from 2020 to 2025, with Lincolnshire receiving over £116m between 2022 and 2025 for highway maintenance alone.

"We've also brought in new rules to clamp down on utility companies leaving potholes behind after carrying out street works."