Herts CC Put Up Their Own Funding for Adverse Weather Recovery - "But Is It Enough?" Ask Lib Dems

Liberal Democrats at County Hall were heartened to discover that the Conservative administration had listened to the recent Lib Dem budget suggestion and decided to commit extra funds for repairing our roads and pavements after the recent flooding and atrocious weather.

Unfortunately, the Conservatives at County Hall were clearly not listening properly, because they decided they could fix all the damage with just £1m (£270 for every mile of road in Hertfordshire) rather than the £2m the Liberal Democrats proposed in their alternative budget.

The £1m, from a special reserve, was agreed by HCC at a Policy, Resources and Transformation Cabinet Panel and was confirmed by HCC Cabinet. The funds are available to help fix some of the damage the recent weather caused.

Paul Zukowskyj, Shadow Cabinet Portfolio-holder for Corporate Issues commented: "Yet again Herts Tories are short-changing residents. Our roads are in a terrible state, yet the Conservatives believe £1m will fix all the problems. It's simply not enough!

"The Conservatives aren't living in the real world. The damage to our highways has been extensive, and coming on top of the chronic backlog of outstanding maintenance work we've seen accumulate in recent years, it's a drop in the ocean.

"We suggested the recovery programme needed to be at least £2m, and that was on top of the £9m we'd budgeted to expand normal highways maintenance. This would have given Hertfordshire residents some chance of seeing a real improvement in our highways network.

"£1m simply isn't enough. We welcome the attempt, but we're left wondering when they will realise residents are utterly fed up of driving over moonscapes instead of roads."