Swindon’s Conservative Administration Cut Road Improvements Funding

 These cuts will mean that residents will have to wait longer for their roads and footpaths to be resurfaced and it will mean less money to improve the traffic flow or provide additional roads infrastructure in Swindon.

The Labour Group’s Shadow Lead for Transport, Councillor Jim Robbins, has criticised plans from Swindon’s Conservative administrative to cut funding for road improvements, including road and footpath resurfacing.

The Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday 17th June, have approved a Capital Roads Budget of £8.027m for 2015/16, compared with £12.6m in 2014/15, including a cut of £2.5m for Highways maintenance schemes in the borough (from £5.9m in 2014/15 to £3.38 in 2015/16).

Councillor Jim Robbins said:  “These cuts are having to be made due to a combination of government funding cutbacks and the council scaling back its own investment in roads. These cuts will mean that residents will have to wait longer for their roads and footpaths to be resurfaced and it will mean less money to improve the traffic flow or provide additional roads infrastructure in Swindon.

Frankly for a town that is growing at the rate Swindon is and with more and more cars on our roads, we need more investment on our roads, not less as Swindon’s Conservative Councillors are proposing. The Labour Group had previously proposed using some of the remaining New Homes Bonus, which provides the Council with millions of pounds of income each year, on roads and footpath resurfacing and the Conservatives have kept blocking this but now we can see the impact of the Conservatives’ decision.

That is why I am calling on the Conservative administration to think again about these road improvement cuts.”

Cllr Jim Robbins
Swindon Labour Group Shadow Lead for Transport