On Tuesday (4 March), councillors at the Highways and Transport Committee agreed a £59 million highways maintenance and improvement programme for 2025/26.
The county’s roads need more than £400m worth of maintenance to address all the issues, and that doesn’t include soil impacted roads, which is roughly an additional £530m.
However, the council’s business plan, which was approved last month, has enabled an additional £20m in 2025/26 to address our highway issues; a further £20m is allocated for 2026/27.
This funding, along with an additional £8m from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, will prioritise increased funding for Local Highway Improvements (LHIs), trees, weeds and vegetation, drainage maintenance, road safety, active travel, soil affected roads, highways maintenance including potholes, lining and signs, street lighting and bus shelter enhancements.
The programme, which has been produced using a new prioritisation process already agreed by the committee, means each scheme is scored against a set criterion. Such as the type of road, does it have active travel links, is it a public transport route, the condition, is it near a school or a care home and how many people use it. It means the schemes are designed to apply the right treatment suitable to that location.
Improvements include more than £30m worth of carriageway maintenance, an additional £2m on soil affected roads, more than £7m on footpath and cycleway maintenance, £1m on active travel and £4m on drainage.
Some of the schemes agreed today, include £650k for resurfacing parts of Mill Road, £523k for footway improvements on Market Street, £862k for reconstructing Hundred Foot Bank in Little Downham, £1.2m at Sixteen Foot Bank, £1.2m on resurfacing between roundabouts on Spittals Way, £630k for resurfacing parts of Earith Road and preparation work for resurfacing Granham’s Road in Great Shelford.
Following approval at committee, the programme will now go through design and development work before delivery begins in April, running through to March 2026.
Cllr Alex Beckett, chair of the Highways and Transport Committee at Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “However we travel, we've all seen the impact decades of under investment has had on our highway network.
“This is the largest capital investment in highways on record for Cambridgeshire, nearly double what we were spending four years ago. While we need government help to address the substantial backlog of repairs, it really is a step change in how we do highway maintenance and will make a meaningful difference for all of us.”
Cllr Neil Shailer, vice-chair of the Highways and Transport Committee at Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “This programme is based on a clear process – it not only means we can evidence those needs, but we can be more strategic in our approach.
“We can prioritise the funding we have available, secure more from government and represent good value for money. I look forward to these improvements being rolled out across the county.”
The committee papers can be found on our website and the meeting was live streamed on the council’s YouTube channel.
