Bid for funding to restore maintenance across council area

It follows news that his department is facing some £60million worth of cuts in the coming year, more than half of which will fall to TransportNI.

Mr Kennedy said: “As it stands, my budget does not provide for sufficient service provision in areas like repair of potholes, street lights and traffic signals and other measures such as gully emptying and grass cutting at junctions.

“As a result, my Department has no option other than to cut back on the routine maintenance of the network.

“There will be no funding available for external contractors to carry out routine road maintenance; however, the department’s internal workforce will be providing a skeleton service for the first part of the year, at least.

“I will be making a strong bid for resource funding in monitoring rounds to return routine maintenance services to normal levels.”

Despite the cuts, some £48.5million was invested into road schemes throughout the council area during 2014-2015, the Minister added.