Councillors narrowly vote NOT to ask for more roads cash
Councillors narrowly voted down an opportunity to request more money for the region’s roads from the Scottish Government.
A report detailing Highland Council’s annual roads budget was a cause for concern among some members of the economy and infrastructure committee at its meeting on Thursday February 12.
Councillor Andrew Baxter (Fort William and Ardnamurchan) claimed a reported £233 million road works backlog figure had “disappeared” from council papers.
He said “councillors are in the dark” about how far behind the local authority is on repairing its roads and put forward an amendment detailing that committee members should formally acknowledge the backlog figure and write to the Scottish Government’s transport secretary to request a meeting to discuss better road funding for the region.
But this was narrowly voted down. A tied vote saw the committee chairman Councillor Michael Green (Nairn and Cawdor) have the final say.
He chose his own motion to approve the current budget and figures as set out in the paper.
Cllr Green said: "We have to address this problem (of funding)" but did not believe that writing to the Scottish Government would help the situation.
The failure of the amendment to be voted through means the current annual budget for the financial year 2026/27 will stand at £21,550,000 for the whole of the Highlands – an increase of only 2.15 per cent on the previous year.
Last month, Thurso and Northwest Caithness councillor Matthew Reiss said the council would require an annual roads budget of around £32m to £35m "just to stand still".
He warned members at last week’s meeting that, on average, deteriorating Highland roads rack up an additional £1 million worth of repair costs every month.
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