Farron - Council bid for potholes cash!

Local MP Tim Farron has called on Cumbria County Council to bid for a major slice of a new £200 million cash fund for councils to repair potholes.

The "Potholes challenge fund" will provide an additional £200 million to local authorities to spend on maintaining the road network. Tim wants Cumbria County Council to bid for funds to improve the state of our roads. Cumbria has around 4,784 miles of roads and many of them are strewn with potholes. In March the council estimated that our county had around 40,000 potholes that needed to be fixed.

This emergency funding being set aside by the Government will allow local authorities to repair up to 3.2 million potholes which are blighting British roads following the recent severe weather.

Last year, Tim helped secure an extra £5.9 million of roads investment for Cumbria from the Government over two years. Cumbria will be given £3.89 million in 2013/14 and £2.082 million in 2014/15. This is in addition to the current funding the council receives.

Tim said: "When I'm out knocking on doors, local residents mention to me time after time the poor state of our roads. We need to bid for a major slice of this funding that will allow us to fix our roads properly. I think people pay enough tax for their cars; the least they deserve is decent roads, not roads strewn with potholes."