Staffs’ repairs budget hinges on asset sales

Staffordshire County Council is proposing to add £20m to its highways maintenance capital budget to be funded by planned asset sales.

The proposal that will be presented to a full council meeting next week is to add £20m to the capital budget for the next two years to ameliorate the impact of reductions in capital and revenue funding from Whitehall.

However, it will take time to generate the additional capital receipts by selling a number of council offices and moving to a new headquarters, so the initial investment would be funded by making £4m of efficiency savings in the highways service.

The proposed revenue budget for the built county service covering highways for 2012/13 is £31.2m compared to the £36.6m budget for the current year. There are also additional cost pressures: the likely increase in street lighting energy costs alone will cost an extra £0.5m.

The budget report acknowledges: “Failure to generate additional receipts will increase the council’s borrowing costs.”

But councillor Mike Maryon said: “Investing now makes real financial sense to avoid more costly repairs later. It is important to have a top class transport network for our economy to thrive, particularly in rural areas.”