MORE THAN £30 million will be spent on North Yorkshire's roads next year.

North Yorkshire County Council announced today the Government has allocated £29.650m to help the authority maintain the 9,000km of roads in the county in 2015/16 - about £9m more than it was given last year.

County Councillor Gareth Dadd, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways, said: "Over the last eighteen months we have been lobbying central Government about the maintenance crisis facing the county’s roads. This year we have been very successful in attracting additional funding for North Yorkshire and I would like to believe that our lobbying has helped influence Government thinking on this national increase in maintenance funding."

However, Cllr Dadd said it would cost about £60m to maintain the county's roads, and taking into account the state of disrepair of some roads and backlog, the authority would require about £322m.

To help improve the roads, the authority is using some of its reserves.

Cllr Dadd said: "We hope to have a total of around £38m available next year to repair the roads.

"Our priority up until now has been to concentrate on the busier A and B roads so these are now in quite a good condition. But this has had an impact on the quieter roads and about one quarter of these - or over 1,200km - now require maintenance."