North Northamptonshire Council announces its biggest investment in highways yet

North Northamptonshire Council has announced its largest investment in funding the maintenance of highways across the county yet.

More than £12m could be spent repairing, restoring and refreshing the highway network, so long as proposals are accepted by full council next week.

The cabinet today (February 15) accepted government highways grants for 2024/25 totalling £9.768m, combined with £1.069m already approved from the cancellation of the government’s HS2 project.

A further £3m could also be incorporated into next year’s budget, as a capital funding programme from NNC’s own resources will go to full council for approval next week.

The capital investment would form part of a three-year scheme totalling £9m for the county’s roads networks.

Cllr Valerie Anslow (Lab) said: “This is the biggest investment in the highway network since 2021.

"I hope it won’t all go on potholes because I’m sure we have all got examples in our area of holes being filled and after a short while the hole appears again.

“Due to underfunding for many years, there are many roads that are more holes than not.”

Approximately £8m of the budget will be spent on highway maintenance and the potholes fund, which supports routine upkeep of the highway network.

A total of £1.36m will be spent on the integrated transport block, which focuses on extensions to the walking and cycling networks, the maintenance of traffic signals and implementing road safety measures.

It is anticipated that most of these schemes will be delivered by the council’s highway services provider, Kier.

However, councillors at the meeting called the infrastructure giant’s effectiveness into question and asked for them to be scrutinised.

This comes after NNC’s own leader, Cllr Jason Smithers, took to social media to call out the contractor, highlighting a case where a damaged road sign hadn’t been fixed more than a year after it was first reported.

Executive member for highways, Cllr Matt Binley, said that regular meetings are held with Kier to ‘constantly’ challenge them and ‘hold their feet to the fire’ regarding their performance.

The extra £3m in capital funding from the council will be determined next week on February 22.