A MULTI-million pound hole in budgets to fix roads and structures across Stockton has sparked fresh pleas for more help.

Council figures show teams in the borough need more than £9.5m to pay for highway assets to be kept in their existing condition.

But Monday’s place select committee heard how the annual budget for this year came to less than half this sum – with just under £4.2m available for roads, lights, and bridges across Stockton in 2021/22.

Council reports also revealed the budget for Stockton’s winter hit roads was £1.6m under the sum required to keep them from getting any worse.

Highways officer Simon Milner told councillors the shortfall meant his department faced “challenges” – and later conceded the money it was getting “clearly isn’t enough”

“It’s less than the 50 per cent we actually need to manage and maintain the highways infrastructure assets in their current condition,” he added.

“Effectively, what we’re doing as a team and officers is to manage the deterioration of the assets.

"We do have to make really tough decisions and choices on an annual basis.

Councillors have launched a probe into pothole woes and surface water flooding across the borough in response to a winter which has not been kind to Teesside’s roads.

Stockton Council oversees 548 miles of highways alongside 400 bridges and structures, more than 29,000 street lights and 2,100 illuminated signs and bollards. It is also in charge of looking after 122 miles of public rights of way, 169 traffic signal junctions and 43,000 highway gullies.

Panellists heard how it would cost a staggering £317m to bring all these assets to brand new condition – and more than £80m to revamp the borough’s roads.

But there were questions about the gap in funding.

Cllr Mohammed Javed told the committee some of the roads in his Parkfield and Oxbridge ward were in a “really bad” state – saying residents had knocked on his door almost daily about the state of them.

The Stockton mayor said: “It’s how we can recommend to get more money – the shortfall is over £4m.”

Chairman Cllr Chris Barlow agreed.

He said: “Potholes will be repaired and repaired again.

"Residents will come and ask “why don’t you repair the whole road in one go?”.

“But the problem is we just don’t have the money and it’s just a quick fix because of the budget gap we have.”

Mr Milner said the council had a list of roads which needed work – but he explained council teams just “weren’t in a position” to sort them all out. He added: “Don’t get me wrong, we do have a programme for scheduled maintenance where we’ll do larger areas with structural hatching and resurfacing schemes.

“But clearly the list we have is longer than the funding so we can’t do them all."

“The days of just resurfacing a road from A to B have pretty much gone now – we look at targeting the very worst areas to protect the carriageway and so we can spread the money out over a greater area.

“We’re trying hard to maximise it so we can do the most we can for our money – but clearly it isn’t enough.”

Councillors are to see whether they can put more pressure on the Government and other public bodies to get hold of more pothole cash.

They will also look at whether the council could use new technology when it comes to drainage and road repairs and the impact of climate change on the borough’s bridges and highways.

The review continues next month.