Vol. 461 No. 6
44 Dr. McDaid asked the Minister for the Environment if he will allocate part of the restoration of the non-national roads grant to urban areas or if he will make a special allocation for restoration work in urban areas. [3019/96]
83 Mr. B. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for the Environment if he intends to provide additional funding for county borough roads as they appear to be outside the terms of the proposed ten year plan. [17680/95]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 44 and 83 together.
As I indicated in reply to previous questions on this subject, the decision to undertake a special restoration programme for regional and county roads took account of the seriously deficient condition of significant lengths of these roads, a fact which is attested to by the views of public representatives in this House and elsewhere. The main problems with the non-national road network are to be found in county council areas and these have been given high priority in the allocation of the 1996 non-national road grants which I recently announced. Over £73 million has been set aside under the restoration programme in 1996 and will be used for the repair of road pavements on non-national roads in county council areas.
A total of £8 million in discretionary block grants has been allocated to urban road authorities in 1996 for works on roads in their areas; and £4.9 million of this is allocated to county borough corporations. The level of block grant allocations to urban authorities generally has increased significantly in the last few years, from £5.5 million in 1993 to £8 million in 1996, an increase of 45 per cent. In the same period, discretionary block grants to county boroughs have increased from just under £4 million to £4.9 million, an increase of 23 per cent. In addition, a sum of £3.07 million has been allocated to urban authorities in 1996 under the EU co-financed scheme of grants for improvement projects; of this amount, £1.87 million is allocated to county borough corporations.
