The council is about to embark on a major spending spree to repair roads, pavements and other infrastructure in the city in the next year.
In the budget just approved in February an additional £5 million, split evenly across both revenue and capital budgets was earmarked for maintenance and improvement of important infrastructure. The original sum allocated for capital projects was £16.1m and on revenue projects the sum was £54.1m. At least some of the money raised from car parking charges is reinvested in roads and streets.
Now the council has to work out which streets will be targeted. Councillors agreed upon a new way of prioritising roads and streets in October 2015, and so some streets are already in the frame.
Some of these were given the green light in January just ahead of the budget being agreed, but now plans will have to incorporate other schemes which were delayed in previous years.
All of the roads in the capital are looked at and assessed on an annual basis by independent surveyors, and given a condition rating. But exactly what will get attention will be agreed by the council at the Transport Committee meeting next week. The council officers recommend that the additional monies must be used in such a way that the public notice the improvements, and of course that our streets are better than they are at the moment.
Councillor Lesley Hinds, Transport Convener, said: “Taking all the planned Capital and Revenue spend together, we’re going to be investing £75 million in Edinburgh’s roads, pavements, bridges, cycling infrastructure and street lighting in 2017/18.
“This is a massive sum of money and it will go a long way towards improving the condition of our city’s much-used infrastructure. The investment includes £5m of extra money, which we’re prioritising for roads, pavements, bridges, cycling infrastructure and street lighting because we recognise that this is extremely important to residents, and to the overall look and feel of Edinburgh as a whole.”
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