The highways budget has been significantly reduced over the last few years which means we can't do everything and all works have to be prioritised.
In 2011 it was estimated that there was a backlog in maintenance of £8m for highways, £48m for streetlights, and £31m for bridges. The council decided to borrow £50m so that it could properly invest in its highways assets, carrying out better repairs that would last rather than short term repairs that wouldn't and would cost more in the long run. To date a total of £50.9m has been spent on this programme with a further £2.4m approved in 2020/21. A further £13.6m is planned over the next 5 years.
Most of the funding for highway maintenance comes from annual grants awarded from Central Government through the Department for Transport. We also bid for additional funds for specific projects such as the Fixing the Link project in Bletchley and the A421 Improvement and Pinch Point projects.
The draft Council budget 2021-22 for Highways and Transport funding can be viewed in Annexe L
Parking revenue is also ringfenced to fund specific works including highways maintenance. This is a legal obligation set out in Section 55(d) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The only areas parking revenue can fund are: off street parking provision, public transport, highways and road improvements and environment improvements.
Vehicles regularly damage our infrastructure and so we look to recover those repair costs from them and their insurance companies if possible. This is called Green Claims. It can be a lengthy process but it means that we can recover the costs of the damage without having to use up valuable council budgets.
S106 funding is a legal agreement paid by developers to the council to cover the cost of the impact of growth. For highways, more development means more impact on our roads, redways and footways so S106 may be used to help with this such and could fund all or part of a scheme. There are strict rules around S106 and what it can be spent on. You can find out more about Section 106 planning obligations on gov.uk
There are several large expansion areas of development across MIlton Keynes so a unique 'umbrella' S106 fund was created called the MK Tariff. The overall total of developer contributions to the Tariff will be around £310m. This money is re-invested into a programme of strategic and local infrastructure projects mainly led by the council.