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Contractors have been praised for the completion of road projects in 2014/2015 by Transport Minister Danny Kennedy.
The schemes accounted for £13.4million investment in the roads infrastructure in the Mid-Ulster area.
However, the Minister also expressed his concern over £ 60 million cuts to the Department in 2015/16, more than half of which will fall to TransportNI, which are having a significant impact on services in particular maintenance activities in all areas.
He said:: "As it stands, my budget does not provide for sufficient service provision in areas like repair of potholes, street lights and traffic signals and other measures such as gully emptying and grass cutting at junctions. As a result, my Department has no option other than to cut back on the routine maintenance of the network. There will be no funding available for external contractors to carry out routine road maintenance, however, the Department’s internal workforce will be providing a skeleton service for the first part of the year, at least.
"Road inspections will currently continue as normal, however, only the highest priority potholes will be repaired. Gully emptying and grass cutting services will be provided on a reduced scale. There will be limited weed control, maintenance of white lines and only one quarter of the required resource available to repair street lighting outages. Contractors will still be employed to carry out electrical inspection and testing of street lights and the repair of hazardous electrical and structural defects.
"However despite the cuts, a wide range of road improvement and maintenance schemes are planned or already complete in the Mid-Ulster District.
"The impact of current resource budget pressures on my Department is affecting routine maintenance of the road network, however capital budgets are less affected. Departmental officials will continue to develop resurfacing and traffic management schemes, to enhance safety, to improve traffic flow and provide measures for pedestrians and cyclists."
(CD/MH)
