£4m extra needed to get us out of a hole

NOT unusual: potholes in Springwood, Delph

OLDHAM Council must borrow £4 million to fill the gaping hole in this year’s highways bill.

Around £7.7 million is needed to repair roads ravaged by potholes and new construction.

The council set aside £1.8 million and received a government grant of £1.9 million to help pay the spiralling cost of road repairs. It must borrow the rest to cover the third largest shortfall among the 10 Greater Manchester councils.

Council leader Jim McMahon said: “We knew we needed to find extra funding; the number of potholes has been growing not reducing especially with the extreme winter weather.

“In the past 12 months we’ve carried out repairs to more than 4,500 highway defects. That says two things to me. The first is the sheer scale of the challenge, with even more to do, and secondly that our investment is slowly beginning to pay off. We simply don’t have the money to keep throwing millions at potholes.”