Birmingham Labour's ongoing saga concerning highways funding has taken a drastic and concerning turn as it has been revealed that the Administration is sitting on over £200 million in funding despite the state of Birmingham's roads being worse than ever.
Many of you will remember the highways PFI fiasco of last year, where the Labour Administration in Birmingham tried to reduce the Council's contribution to Birmingham's highways funding under the Private Finance Initiative while simultaneously suing the government to stop reductions in highways funding which the Council was legally mandated to match. The latest in this ongoing saga of Birmingham's roads is the revelation that Labour have been hoarding highways funding, sitting on over £200 million, some of which should have been spent on repairing Birmingham's roads to make them safe. Incredibly, Birmingham Labour - in a recent debate in the City Council - called concerns about the state of Birmingham's roads "conspiracy theories".
£47 million was added to reserves last year, as revealed in a recent cabinet report, bringing the figure up to £207 million. £207 million that could be going towards fixing our roads and pavements. It is important to remember that the longer these roads and pavements wait for repair, the more costly these repairs will be, and the more unsafe our streets become for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.
