I write to correct some of the misinformation contained in the article “Council’s pothole pay-outs over £20K.”

The Council has been allocated funding for Highway maintenance of £16 million and not £60 million as incorrectly reported in this article.

The Coalition government funding of £16million is spread over 5 years and next year’s budget 2015/2016 of £3.05million, is a net reduction of 6.9% from the current financial year 2014/2015.

Each of the following five years are as follows:-

2016/2017 £2.80 million net reduction of 8.3%

2017/2018 £2.71 million net reduction of 3.0%

2018/2019 £2.45 million net reduction of 9.5%

2019/2020 £2.45 million neutral

2020/2021 £2.45 million neutral

Department for Transport allocate a proportion of the total funding to three elements in the following proportions, roads 82.42%, bridges 15.38% and street lighting 2.2% when arriving at a final total.

In addition the Council successfully bid for one of D.f.T additional monies for potholes (£393,335) and prevention of highway flood damage (£309,888).

The Council currently has a backlog of highway repairs in excess of £85 million, which is very challenging for our Highway team.

Tory parliamentary hopefuls would have you believe that the government is fully committed to improving Bolton’s highways. The truth is that the real beneficiaries are once again those in the Tory shire counties, whilst Metropolitan Authorities are the poor relations and continue to lose money each year.

Bolton’s Labour Council on the other hand has shown a very real commitment with an extra one off funding of £4.5million to this year’s budget.

Councillor David Chadwick

Cabinet Member Highways and Transport