Liverpool City Council are to borrow a further £185m to pay for repairs to potholes on the city’s roads.
A report will go in front of the council today that will see a plan for £200M to be loaned to spend on road repairs. Of the £200M, £185M of the money would be a loan repayable over 25 years.
An authority spokesman said it has borrowed before for road repairs but has usually paid for them through capital receipts and revenue spend in the annual budget.
He said the new plan was “aimed at tacking the deteriorating quality of the highways network”,
Mayor Joe Anderson has come under fire from Lib Dem leader Richard Kemp. In a statement released in response to the plans he said ” This borrowing takes the total borrowing for Liverpool Council up to about £900,000,000 or £4,000 per household. This is a huge burden on the taxpayers of Liverpool who are also facing the possibility of a further £500,000,000 for the Everton Ground. It is no good just borrowing money.
What we need to see is any money spent properly. We have received hundreds of complaints about potholes that have been repaired two or three times within a year.
Any money must be properly spent on sustainable long-lasting repairs or the people of Liverpool will have both the debt and the potholes”.
Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said it was “a response to the scale of the problem we face”.