MORE funding is being requested to fix the road maintenance ‘backlog’ in Cumbria after it was revealed that London councils receive more than 2.5 times more funding than those in rural areas.

Cumbria County Council said the upkeep of the roads in the region cost more to fix due to the accessibility of some of the remote locations. Bosses want more funding to help clear the current maintenance issues.

Councillor Keith Little, cabinet member for highways and transport, said: “Cumbria has the fourth largest road network in England which includes a large proportion of rural roads.

“The current funding formula used by government favours urban networks particularly where there are large centres of population.

“Cumbria’s road network is an ageing asset which has been affected by extreme weather events in the last few years and with climate change this is likely to continue.

“We have a maintenance backlog of circa £350m and with reductions in government funding over the last five years we have had to prioritise our funding on our main priority roads and choice of treatments adopting a risk based approach.

“Like all authorities in the country and especially rural counties like here in Cumbria, we continue to lobby Government to allocate more funding for highways infrastructure.

“This year’s funding formula sees Cumbria receive approximately £23,620 of road funding per mile, whilst councils in Greater London receive an average of more than £62,000 per mile.”