A plan to spend more than £9m filling in the city’s potholes has been slammed as a ‘gimmick’.
The council will use the money to resurface, repair and maintain roads across the city over the next year.
The total also includes extra money to tackle potholes caused by freak weather earlier in the year.
The potholes will be fixed with a revolutionary new machine which uses environmentally friendly materials to fill the holes smoothly.
The repairs last longer done this way, and there will also be double the amount of staff working on the repairs.
They will fix up to 100 potholes every day.
Some of the people working on repairing the potholes are the latest new recruits to the council’s highways team.
The team of eight, all previously unemployed workers, have just completed their training programme run by the council and Salford City College.
Councillor Bill Hinds, Salford City Council’s lead member for finance, said: "This time last year no one could have predicted the ‘big freeze’ we experienced in January, or the amount of potholes this bad weather caused.
"We have listened to what people have said and as a result the we're rolling out a pothole repair campaign in the next few weeks.
"This will start with A-roads which will be repaired on Sundays to minimise disruption to motorists.
"We’ll also be repairing over 100 stretches of road in various locations across Salford in the next year."
Cllr Derek Antrobus, lead member for highways added: "I welcome this extra cash which will allow us to speed up our plans to improve the condition of our roads."
But Conservative group leader Karen Garrido said: "It is quite clear that there is an election just around the corner.
"Obviously, I welcome any money that comes to fix the roads but if the council had looked after them in the first place then we wouldn't be in this situation."
Liberal Democrat leader Norman Owen has hit out at the council for the lack of repairs to pot holes in the city.
Cllr Owen says he and fellow councillor John Deas have contacted the council several time over one particular street in Weaste but nothing has been done.
Cllr Owen said: "Dodd Street has been repaired time and time again but the problem always comes back.
"We asked weeks ago for it to be repaired and were assured it would be looked at but nothing has happened.
"The council should be managing funding a lot better or they should devolve budgets to a larger scale to the community committees.
"Dodd Street has always been bad, we've had complaints from residents because these potholes are well over six inches deep and can cause real damage to cars.
"Streets throughout the Weaste, Seedley and Claremont area are in dire need of repair.
"It's endemic throughout the city."
Cllr Derek Antrobus said: "Dodd Street has already been identified for attention and potholes in this road will be repaired in due course."
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MarkinIrlam, Irlam (02/04/2010 at 11:15)
Councillors John Deas and Norman Owen slammed the repairs as a gimic but what I see in this news article are two individuals posing for a local paper and trying to endear themselves to the public.
I would say that they could be as guilty of pre-election posturing as the current labour council members.
So Bernard and Norman please go back to the office and form some plan of action that would remedy the problem, surely that would be time better spent rather than posing for the camera in a Hazel Blears style.
Salford Boy (03/04/2010 at 20:41)
MarkinIrlam, Irlam (05/04/2010 at 11:13)
I would ask what have they done with the money as they have not maintained the roads, can our esteemed council members and MP's start to do the job they are payed to do rather than moaning at each other about what they think the others should have done.
Higgs Boson, Greater Manchester (08/04/2010 at 10:54)
It may suprise you to dicsover that the issues with potholes in salford is not unique to Salford. This has happened to almost every snow hit council in the country (regardless of its political leadership)to some degree. Salford is no worse than any other and most councils are having to find additional funding to tackle the growing number of potholes.
Salford council is not alone with this problem and there are thousands of people with the same view about their own council up and down the country.
MarkinIrlam, Irlam (12/04/2010 at 17:59)
The roads in Salford have been awful for about two years, I don't think we had much snow until Jan/Feb.
My original comment was " Most of these potholes existed before the period of bad weather, Salford council did little about them then and now with the effects of the weather there are ten times as bad."
mark armstrong (19/04/2010 at 21:29)
Salford City Independent's
Road's, Road's and more road's. Does anyone remember when they were any good??
Mark Armstrong, Salford City Independent
Everyone is jumping on the roads issue as the campaign to capture votes gathers momentum. I remember that the roads have been in a terrible state for two or three years now.
So because of the snow they get worse and suddenly in a post election feeding frenzy everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.
My question is not about the damage that has recently occured, its about why the roads in Salford have not been adequetely maintained for a long period of time.
Great claims have been made by th Labour council about finding extra money to repair the problems and much electioneering has been based around that.
Here is the problem though!! Every year they receive millions of pounds to repair the roads and yet they have been in a poor state of repair for a long time, where has the money that central government gives them been spent.
They are given huge amounts of money to maintain the roads but fail miserably, its not just a local issue because you are being taken for a ride with you car tax as well.
Do you remember the C-charge where we were told that we could only have the money if we agreed to road pricing?? With the amount of money generated by road alone they could provide trams, trains, buses for every city in the UK.
These details are from 1999 but still show a huge surplus in revenue:
In 1999 Government revenue from roads amounted to £38 billion, up by 30% over 5 years. 60% was fuel excise duty, 15% was road tax and 25% VAT on motoring and its services (source TSGB Table 1.21 and special request to HM Customs and Excise). Expenditure amounted to £4.9 billion, leaving the Treasury with a profit of £33 billion.
So where does this revenue the government makes go to?? Questions on the back of a postcard to your favourite councillor or MP.
Make a change on the 6th, vote Independent in the local elections