A LOCAL authority which manages so many roads if laid end to end, they would reach India, could receive more than £15m extra annually for highways repairs for the next five years, it has emerged.

North Yorkshire County Council said following the Government announcing an additional £500m per year for road maintenance as part of the budget in March, discussions with Department for Transport officials had suggested that network length will be used to determine funding.

The county, which is England’s largest, has 5,753 miles of roads, meaning North Yorkshire would receive £15.16m per year. The vast majority, £30.9m, of the council’s highways budget, which also covers street lighting, bridges and transport is allocated to carriageway road maintenance, including surface treatment, resurface and reconstruction and patching schemes.

The authority said despite revised working practices due to Covid-19 its road maintenance programme was “progressing to plan”.

Other elements of the highways budget include £2m set aside to strengthen bridges and £1.1m on integrated transport and some £200,000 for the upkeep of the county’s 453-mile network of unsurfaced unclassified roads.

It has been proposed the council continues to fund a variety of schemes to maintain its 2,640-mile footway network, which it says in conjunction with its inspection regime is helping cut the number of successful insurance claims.