BOLTON'S road network faces a major crisis unless there is a substantial boost in funding for repairs and maintenance.

Highways bosses fear the council will be unable to keep up with the deterioration in the town's network of main roads after being hit with a huge reduction in funds accounting for just 12pc of identified needs.

The council estimated that around £4.75 million needs to be spent on principal roads to bring them up to an acceptable standard.

But the authority has been given the go-ahead to spend just £546,000 on the network.

The capital allocation has been slashed from £842,000 last year and £1.15 million the previous year.

In a report to the highways sub-committee, councillors were warned: "The continuing lack of maintenance, together with the increase in the volume of heavy goods vehicles - now far in excess of the original design criteria - has resulted in serious deterioration of the fabric of many carriageways which are now in urgent need of strengthening or restructuring."

The report also states that a reduction in real terms in the allocation for unclassified roads raises serious implications for the "future integrity of the unclassified road network."

And to avoid a "catastrophic effect on the highway network", just 15pc of the allocation to unclassified roads will be spent on footways.

A spokesman for the Highways Department said: "We are not in a crisis situation yet, but our main worry is that we will not be able to keep up with the repairs needed and we will be faced with a major deterioration in our roads.

"The only real answer to this is a substantial increase in funding."

Cllr Peter Birch said: "It all comes down to the fact that the Government is not providing us with the money we need to maintain our roads and we will also have to work hard to utilise the money to maintain our footways."

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