Lincolnshire County Council needs an extra £40 million a year to clear its roads maintenance backlogs, as they call on the government to provide support and plug gaps left by continued funding cuts.

Richard Fenwick, head of Highways Assets at Lincolnshire County Council, explained the scope of the problem in an interview with Frances Finn on BBC Radio Lincolnshire on Tuesday.

The council has long warned of the implications of cuts to the roads maintenance budget, which was slashed by 25% from £51 million to £39 million in 2021, saying it could result in tens of thousands of unfilled potholes on our county's roads.

Mr Fenwick said Lincolnshire County Council was "crying out for more investment" from the government, and feels a reinstatement of the 25% that was cut from Lincolnshire's roads budget would be "a good start" on the recovery path.

"I'm not going to say there aren't a lot of potholes out there, we do need to do more," he said. "A lot of it comes down to the funding we get from central government to fix potholes.

"We'd rather we never had to fill potholes, we'd rather maintain the roads to a state where they don't form in the first place.

"We always challenge ourselves to do better, but the fundamental fact is that to get roads up to a standard where the public would be happy with, we're a long way away from that."

A UK Roads Liaison report from 2021 was cited, which estimated that some £1.9 billion per year was needed to implement the necessary roadwork improvements across the UK.

Lincolnshire County Council predicts that it would need maintenance costs of around £40 million a year to clear the county's backlog and bring the roads "to a perfect standard."

Last year, the county council spent around £65.4 million on highways and footways, and that figure is expected to rise closer to £70 million this time around, according to Mr Fenwick.

"We are spending more than I've ever seen us spend," Richard Fenwick said. He joined Lincolnshire County Council some 17 years ago, in 2007.

Mr Fenwick said we are "actually quite lucky" that Lincolnshire County Council has been able to commit £19 million of funding into the roads maintenance pot, cherry picking resources from reserves and underspends elsewhere in the budget.

He did, however, add that this is something the council "can't keep doing in the long term."

In 2018, 30% of Lincolnshire's unclassified road network was "in pretty immediate need," according to the Highways Assets lead, and that figure now stands at around 25.5%.

This is seen as "gradual improvement," but the council is keen to "accelerate" progress and bring that figure down even lower.

However, Lincolnshire County Council says this cannot be done without government support.

It is the latest financial headache for the county council to deal with, having unveiled some £60 million of cost pressures, brought on mainly by soaring inflation, National Living Wage increases and boosts to adult social care budget requirements, at a recent Executive meeting earlier this month, meaning council tax will have to increase yet again by 5%.