Almost £5m to be spent upgrading North Ayrshire roads network

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Nearly £5 million is being spent on the North Ayrshire roads network over the next year.The capital budget supported by revenue funding is £4.45m for 2023/24.

This includes £100,000 carried forward from 2022/23 for planned works.An additional £500,000 has been identified from the ‘core infrastructure, property and vehicles renewal investment’ capital budget allocation, taking the total investment in the road network to £4.95m for 2023/24.Also, at the council’s budget setting meeting on March 1, an extra (up to) £1m was allocated to roads revenueinvestment for 2023/24 should the year end outturn for 2022/23 deliver an underspend of £1m or more.Lighting is allocated an annual capital budget of a million pounds.

Bridge and retaining wall condition is also assessed through regular inspections.Among the highlights of the carriageway resurfacing, spread around the community, are: £180,000 on Stuart Street, Millport; £150,000 on Middleton Road, Irvine; £160,000 in Braehead, Dalry; £210,000 on Caledonia Road and Argyle Road, Saltcoats; and £150,000 on the B778, Kilwinning.The road maintenance programme in 2022/23 ensured high inflationary cost increases were less harsh.This was achieved by forecasting higher projected costs and building this into the programme early in the financial year, and the Ayrshire Minor Works Framework contract price being held for the six months to last September.Council leader Marie Burns said: “It’s good to see that preparatory work being done to help counter inflation and although we can’t say categorically that we will have our million pounds we should note how good it was that all three political parties at the budget agreed to provide additional funding for the roads.