Council with Merseyside’s most complained about road gets huge pothole funding boost

St Helens council has received more than half a million pounds of funding for pothole repairs and the maintenance of the borough’s roads.

The revenue comes from a pot of £3.7million handed to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) by the Department for Transport, which has been divided among the six council regions.

Liverpool will receive around a quarter of the cash, with almost £1m going to the city’s roads. More than £760,000 is being invested in Wirral with a further £628,000 going to Sefton. St Helens Council will receive investment of £524,114 while Knowsley and Halton will get more than £400,000 each.

St Helens’ portion for the 2023/24 financial year has been calculated based on the length of the borough’s roads in kilometres as a percentage of LCRCA roads.

Cost of pothole repairs: In August, a study by the Federation of Small Businesses revealed that St Helens spent £800,658 on road repairs in 2022/23, £350,658 more than its budget of £450,000.

Complaints: FOIs for the study showed 1,482 complaints regarding the quality of roads were received and 53 claims made. Liverpool Road, in St Helens, was the most complained about road in the Liverpool City Region.

Council funding vote: A report recommends the council’s cabinet accept the LCRA funding at its meeting on Wednesday. It says: “This additional funding will be used to advance the established highways maintenance delivery programme. The funding will be allocated to conduct works to prevent and fix potholes and surfacing treatments on the highway network.

“The funding is allocated to local highways authorities so they can most effectively spend this on maintaining and improving their respective network, based upon their local knowledge, circumstances and priorities.

“This considers all parts of the highway network, such as bridges, cycleways, and lighting columns – and not just the fixing of potholes.

“As previous pothole funding settlements for the Liverpool City Region, the funding has been allocated on a formulaic basis with the share for St Helens Borough Council being £524,114.24.

“This allocation has been calculated based on the length of St Helens roads in kilometres as a percentage of Liverpool City Region roads.

“Cabinet is recommended to accept this funding allocation from the LCRCA as it will assist the council to maintain and improve local roads and the council as highway authority to perform its statutory duty to maintain the adopted highway.

“The effective maintenance and improvement of the local highway network will support and strengthen the opportunities for growth within the borough and the City Region.”