Mayor James Palmer says news that both Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council received maximum additional grants from the Government for road maintenance is down to devolution and the combined authority.

Both Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have received the maximum amount of additional road maintenance funding from the Department for Transport.

“This funding means almost £3.1m (£2.5m for Cambridgeshire County Council and £580k for Peterborough City Council) has been awarded to both the county and city council in recognition for making the best use of funds available and prioritising the needs of the public,” said a county council spokesman.

Mayor Palmer, however, says the full amount paid to both local authorities is a result of the emergence of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CAPCA). .

He said: “The Department for Transport has made clear when distributing local transport grant funding that it is rewarding those areas which have committed to devolution.

“By having a combined authority, this has guaranteed the maximum amount of grant funding for important highways maintenance across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, equivalent to £2.8 million above the base funding level.

“This is yet another example of the combined authority being able to ensure additional funding from central Government flows in to this area.”

This year (2019-20), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have also received funding totalling £990k to help prevent and fix potholes.

County council leader Steve Count tweeted that they were “already talking about how quickly we can deploy extra resources as soon as possible to accelerate our road improvements programme”.

Richard Lumley, assistant director of highways for the county council, said: “We welcome this funding from the government which will help us keep our roads in good condition.”

He said: “Our roads are important to us and we are listening to people by spending more money on repairing and resurfacing our roads in Cambridgeshire.

“We will also combine this with our specialist machines, known as the ‘dragon patcher’ so we continue our battle on potholes.”

He said that in order to keep our roads maintained people need to help by coming forward and reporting them using our online tool.

Visit the county council webpage to find out more about they repair potholes -

www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/pothole-video-series/