County council earmarks £58m for road maintenance

A council has agreed to earmark £58m for road maintenance and improvements in a county over 2026-27.

Cambridgeshire County Council said the investment would support work on 210km (130 miles) of the county's roads, including the A1307 Hills Road in Cambridge, the A142 Ely Road in Soham, and A605 Elton, near Peterborough.

The authority said it was working with government and partners to secure "fairer funding" after facing a £800m maintenance backlog, with the earmarked figure representing 7.25% of the backlog.

The authority has set aside £2.5m for repairs on soil-affected roads, which it claimed could cost four times as much to repair as standard ones.

Alex Beckett, the Liberal Democrat councillor and chair of the Highways and Transport Committee at the authority, said: "By focusing on preventative maintenance, we're extending the life of our roads, and reducing the need for costly reconstruction later on."

The council has earmarked £36.5m for carriageway maintenance, £4.5m to maintain and improve footways and cycle routes, and £3m for strengthening bridges and structures.

An additional £1.5m is expected to "identify long-term solutions for repairing soil-affected roads", with the trialling of different treatments expected to begin in the summer.

In addition to the maintenance programme, the Local Transport Grant scheme would invest £3.45m in improvements supporting safer, greener and more accessible travel.

Schemes would be funded through Department for Transport grants and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, with additional investment from the county council.

The combined authority will confirm funding allocation this month, and work on roads was expected to take place between April and March 2027, said the county council.

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