Essex has again lost out to other parts of the country in a cash handout by the Government.
The county's rural roads will receive £2.5 million less next year than in 2002 from Whitehall, despite many of them needing urgent repairs and many other areas seeing an increase in their grants.
It comes just a week after Essex county councillors said council taxpayers would be facing higher bills next year because ministers had given more funding to other areas.
The award for the maintenance of rural roads comes as part of a £26 million handout from the Government to help the council pay for transport schemes.
Ron Williams, the council's portfolio holder for highways and transportation, said he was pleased with the overall cash settlement, but was disappointed rural roads would be losing out.
He said Essex's country road network was in need of large scale investment to bring them up to a decent standard, but the decrease in funding would make it harder to achieve that.
The biggest problem had been caused by bad weather in recent years with heavy rainfall undermining the foundations of many surfaces, he said.
"The Government are saying they are not as bad as in some other parts of the country," he said. "All I can say is that some other areas must be pretty awful."
But in the Government's grant, an extra £1 million has been earmarked next year for public transport schemes across Essex.
Published Monday, December 16, 2002
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