00:00Newcastle City Council has unveiled a £50 million investment plan to tackle the city's
00:05growing pothole problem in what leaders describe as a significant but still insufficient step
00:10towards restoring the city's crumbling roads and pavements. The announcement follows a stark
00:17estimate earlier this year that it would take more than £250 million to bring Newcastle's
00:22highways networks back to an acceptable standard. Council leader Karen Kilgoura admitted the new
00:28funding will not on its own be sufficient to deal with the backlog but insisted it would make a big
00:34difference to some of the worst affected areas. The initial £1 million from the fund has already
00:40been earmarked for urgently servicing work on key roads including the A193 Shields Road, A186 Station
00:46Road, C1110 Tyne View, Regent Farm Road, the A595 Scottswood Road and footpath improvements on
00:53Dremshire Place. These projects are set to begin immediately. Kilgoura said residents were
01:00understandably frustrated by deteriorating street conditions and stressed the council's commitment
01:04to prioritising urgent repairs. Naturally we tackle the most urgent repairs as a matter of priority
01:11and our resources are appropriately directed to those areas where the need is greatest she said.
01:16But the funding announcement has drawn a criticism from opposition leaders and raised concerns about the
01:22long-term sustainability of the approach. Liberal Democrat opposition leader Colin Ferguson said
01:28the £50 million pledge would barely touch the sides of the actual funding required. Our party has
01:35long been critical on the council's limited attention to a spiralling backlog he said adding that more
01:40ambition and urgency were needed to address the full scale of the problem. Ferguson's concerns echo
01:46wider frustrations around central government funding. While the government has announced £1.6 billion for
01:52local pothole repairs in 2025 to 2026, only £21.7 million of that will be shared across the entire
01:59North East including Northumberland, Tyne and Weir and County Durham through the North East Combined Authority.
02:05Newcastle City Council argues that a share of this national funding has failed to keep pace with the growing cost of road
02:11maintenance for a number of years, bolting it to prioritise only the most pressing repairs.
02:17Adding to public frustration are complaints that previous pothole repairs have not been done to a high enough
02:22standard with some roads needing to be fixed repeatedly. But what are they like in your local area?
02:28Should the government be providing more funds on fixing potholes in our region?
02:33The potholes are pretty bad. We had a massive one on our street and like no cars could get past, everyone had to go around and the council, I remember my mum complaining about the council over that, so I don't think they're that good, but they did fill it up eventually.
02:48For me, I live on, well there's quite a lot of country roads, so there's obviously quite a lot of potholes, quite a lot, but I do think they get sorted quite well. They all seem to be getting done, so yeah, I think they get sorted quite well.
02:5925
03:03so
03:04mostly
03:06I think a lot of things I have been trying to do with all honesty, but I am trying to cover the same as well.
03:10But what do we do with the link?
03:11Thanks, guys.
03:12And if you keep watching as well but
03:18here you get all this map andrue I said there's a lot of information.
03:23As well as it all I'm building up on my kitchen and I they're running around and you can be feeling
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