NORTH Yorkshire County Council has refuted a report which claims it has cut spending on maintaining the county’s roads.

A report released today by the AA, which claimed the council cut its highways budget by £6.2m in 2016/17, the highest of any local authority outside of London

The AA report was based on Freedom of Information requests from 363 local authorities, which found three out of five had cut their total highways and transport budget compared to 2016/17.

It said a proportion of councils’ total transport budget was set aside for planned roadworks and ad-hoc repairs for potholes, road signs and hedge cutting affecting sightlines, and said NYCC made the largest cut outside the capital.

Edmund King, AA president, said: "It is clear that local authority budgets are being squeezed and highways budgets are almost the first in line to be cut.

"Far too often drivers are viewed by every level of government as wallets on wheels. We think it is time to redress the balance and drivers get the investment needed to bring our roads back up to scratch."

However, county councillor Don Mackenzie, NYCC's executive member for highways, said the AA's report was flawed.

He said: "The AA has used a Government return that does not reflect spending in cash terms. If the AA had checked with us we could have shown them how we have increased spending, before naming us in this inaccurate way.

"We have maintained our roads maintenance spending and in fact we have increased our expenditure on the network in 2016/17 beyond that which we had initially budgeted for. In addition we have also targeted preventative capital repairs, increasing expenditure in these areas in order to maximise efficiency and minimise costly reactive revenue maintenance."

Cllr Mackenzie said last year’s budget for the region's 5,000 miles of roads was £52.6m, and the planned budget for 2017/18 was £53.3m, what he called "a clear increase in cash spending".

The county council has also given an additional £44m over seven years for road maintenance, made up of its own money and from a successful capital bid to the Local Growth Fund, which linked the maintenance of the rural road network with economic growth - the first of its kind to be spent on road maintenance.

Cllr Mackenzie said: "The condition of our rural roads network has substantially improved as a result of this continuing investment.

"Our additional and innovative use of funding for roads is about vital support for economic growth, supporting business and keeping rural communities and the economy on the move. Road maintenance of our vast network is a top priority and one of our greatest challenges."