A Labour councillor has warned a £2million plan to tackle issues on local roads will only scratch the surface of the problems.

Staffordshire County Council unveiled the additional funding to deal with problem drains, gully emptying and roadside grass cutting.

But Cllr Steve Norman, Labour group leader at Lichfield District Council, said the money was nowhere near enough.

Cllr Steve Norman
Cllr Steve Norman

“The report said the current known workstack of drainage related issues is estimated to exceed £20million.

“So the money for drainage is less than 10% of what is needed.”

Cllr Steve Norman, Staffordshire County Council

Cllr Norman said more scrutiny of such spending plans were needed – and he urged the Conservative cabinet of Staffordshire County Council to follow the example of their Tory colleagues at Lichfield Dsitrict Council.

“I have said within my group and elsewhere that the district council’s cabinet meetings does involve some scrutiny.

“Members of the cabinet do ask real, sometimes difficult, questions of each other.

“Either they are very good actors or, as I believe, they want to have answers to questions about reports being presented by a colleague.

“Credit where it is due for our district members, but watching the Staffordshire Cabinet meeting was excruciating.

“Not a single question was asked such as ‘if we have a backlog of over £20million of drainage repairs why are getting excited about a one-off expenditure of less than 10% of what is needed?’

“Of course, you don’t embarrass your colleagues as you can raise issues privately beforehand, but there should be some transparent scrutiny of these big proposals. 

“There is no point in watching them as you learn nothing over and above what is in the reports themselves.” 

Cllr Steve Norman, Staffordshire County Council

Founder of Lichfield Live and editor of the site.

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theaardvark
3 years ago

£20 million backlog. I won’t hold my breath waiting for the drains outside my hose to be cleared then.

John Allen
3 years ago

Can we have the figure for how much is going to be allocated to fix all the potholes, since many of our roads are beginning to resemble bomb sites?