Worcestershire County Council remains committed to investing into the economy, environment, highways and extra school places in the budget for 2023/24 and future years.
In the 2022/23 budget, the County Council committed to set aside an additional £41.75 million for 2023/24, with a further £29.75 million for 2024/25 for capital projects. This included continued improvements being made to roads, pavements and infrastructure, schools, key projects, flood relief schemes, cutting congestion and regeneration schemes.
The overall capital programme has now been increased from that by Full Council in February 2022 by £55 million, mainly due to the increase in the cost of schemes arising from recent inflationary pressures.
The capital programme includes the cost of highways, walking and cycling works and major infrastructure projects.
Of this increase, £19.4m has been added to ensure that the improvements in pavements and highways keeps pace with inflation and the level of delivery is unaffected by the impact of inflation.
Other schemes which have been agreed during the year include Redditch Railway Station, Kepax Bridge and the A38 Bromsgrove Route Enhanced Programme (BREP), and they are also included in the programme.
Councillor Marc Bayliss, Cabinet Member for Economy, Investment and Skills, said: “We are committed as a Council to investing into the economy, environment, highways and for extra school places.
“We’re setting aside an extra £41.75 million for the next 12 months for capital projects in Worcestershire.
“We are facing pressures, like all other local authorities, such as the increase in the cost of schemes as a result of inflation. But we are continuing to invest to ensure these things outside of our control do not affect the delivery of our capital programme.”
In the revenue budget, an extra £500,000 has been set aside to enable minor highways works to be actioned more quickly such as the pruning of trees and replacing damaged signs.
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