I stood in for John Doran on the Transportation Committee again today, and got this update on finance for Surrey’s roads.

 The Transportation Committee recommended that local overspends on road schemes should be written off, and underspends carried forward. The Executive have decided against this.  This would be a great blow to Woking’s Local Transport Plan, except that the Executive have found another £5 million to spend on roads. David Munro, the Executive Member for Transport, described the suggestion of write-offs as a ‘nice try, but no chance’ because ‘all the bits and pieces [are] wrapped up in that £5M … [and] you will find that the allocation of that £5 million more than compensates for that overspend.’  

David Munro explained that £2.5 million would go into the highways Capital budget from underspends by the Council in areas other than transport, and another £2.5 million would be found for highways maintenance.

Meetings are being held with local Committee Chairmen and Vice Chairman to talk about how the money is allocated. They are ‘moving towards a formula’ in which the main factor will be the length of roads in the area, on which basis ’Guildford and Waverley will get more than Epsom and Ewell’, except that they will also recognise in the formula where there are more vehicles per kilometre.  ‘Epsom and Ewell [are] winners on that’.

Where this leaves Woking we don’t yet know, but it should be better off than before.

Mr. Munro revealed as one of his personal objectives that he wanted to ‘oversee and implement [a] ‘mid-course correction’ for highways 2008/09. ‘ 

We’re already well into that financial year. I hope in Woking our Highways Director’s foresight in putting money into design so that there are schemes ready to lift off the shelf the moment money becomes available will pay off.  Pedestrian crossings of  Westfield Road and Denton Way, and the re-shaping of the crossing point at Amstel Way and Lockfield Drive would be my personal candidates for restoration to this year’s work programme.

I certainly got the hint of a ’use it or lose it’ threat in the Executive members jocular remark that ‘here you’ve got all this money from a kind Executive - from a kind Council - jolly well make sure you spend it.’