Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon has called out the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire for "stealing away" £4 million in highways funding from North Yorkshire to York.
Speaking in Parliament, the MP asked the Minister for Transport whether he thought it was ‘fair’ for David Skaith to reallocate £4 million in highways budget away from North Yorkshire.
The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire has redirected the money closer to his home patch in York.
This comes in the wake of the Government cutting the Rural Services Delivery Grant at the end of last year, which already amounted to a cut of £14.2 million.
The Minister responded that it is “up to local leaders to decide how to spend that”.
Tom Gordon said:
“The Government’s response is just to pass the buck. It’s a double whammy of chronic underfunding from both the Minister and the Mayor.
“No longer recognising the additional costs of delivering services in sparsely populated areas and now adding insult to injury for people in rural North Yorkshire with a highways cut - how is that fair?"
A spokesperson for Mayor David Skaith said proposals would still deliver “record-breaking” investment in North Yorkshire’s roads, with £268 million allocated over four years, adding that the wider £456 million transport plan would “fix our roads and make them safer for everyone who uses them”.
The highways maintenance funding will be discussed at a meeting of the combined authority today (March 27th).
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