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The Road Surface Treatments Association (RSTA) has warned that funding to maintain and repair England’s potholed local road network is in danger of further significant reduction.

The warning comes as new government statistics show that English council’s budgets for highways and transportation are to suffer a significant loss of 10.6% in 2016-17 compared to last year.

The ‘Local Authority Revenue Expenditure and Financing: 2016-17 Budget, England’ report from the Department for Communities and Local Government demonstrates a fall of £521m in highways and transportation budgets (from £4.9bn to £4.4bn). The Department said that the funding drop was ‘largely driven by a decrease to the support to operators provided by local authorities’.

“In order to support current levels of support for public transport operators, councils may be forced to raid road maintenance budgets”, warned Howard Robinson, RSTA chief executive. “Given the poor state of many of our local roads this is of concern”.

He continued; “The cuts to the highways and transportation budgets show that government fails to understand that good and efficient transportation is essential for both the social and economic wellbeing of the country”.