At the start of 2011, Buckinghamshire County Council had been delighted to have received a considerable increase in capital grant funding allocated by government for both highway maintenance and transport improvements for 2011/12. The council capital budget increased from around £5 million to £16.8 million. Of this total Transport for
Buckinghamshire planned to spend around £14.2m on highway maintenance and £2.6m on integrated transport improvements. Of the £14.2m highway maintenance budget, £11.7m was to be spent on road resurfacing and the rest on bridge, street lighting and drainage repairs.
Buckinghamshire, along with all other highway authorities across the country was once again faced with severe defects on its roads after the exceptionally severe weather of last winter. In a repeat of the action taken in early 2010 and with the road maintenance problem being so severe the Chancellor announced that funding was being made available to assist Local Authorities to repair some of the damage. In total a sum of £2.4m was allocated to Buckinghamshire by the Department for Transport.
Feedback from public surveys and opinion polls consistently identified road repairs as a priority for uckinghamshire's residents. Therefore, following a change in County Council leadership in May, money from other areas within the Transportation budget was reprioritised to carriageway repairs. This resulted in a further £2.68m being reallocated from lower priority areas in to road repairs. With similar allocation of funding in the next year it is expected that there will be a 2 year road repair programme of £25m inclusive of the DfT’s allocation.