Minister Announces Funding For Winter Road Maintenance

Infrastructure Minister John O'Dowd has announced additional funding to improve road safety during the winter months and address waste-water infrastructure challenges.

The funding, allocated through the October monitoring round, will be used to bolster winter road maintenance services, ensuring that roads remain safe and accessible during adverse weather conditions.

O'Dowd emphasised the importance of winter road maintenance, particularly during nighttime hours when many people are unaware of the efforts undertaken to keep roads clear and safe. He highlighted the critical role this service plays in maintaining public safety and facilitating essential travel.

The Minister continued: "I have also funded a £1m targeted intervention for gully emptying, given the potential impact of severe weather and resultant risk of flooding. Again, this is often unseen work, but it is vital to keep our roads safer as we head into the winter months."

In addition, almost £19m is being allocated for essential and structural road maintenance and street lighting work. NI Water is receiving an extra £31m in total, £19.5m of which is capital funding for targeted action to release wastewater constraints, while Translink will receive a combined resource and capital allocation of almost £12m.

Minister O'Dowd said: "There is much to be done and it will come as no surprise that we have a limited envelope in which to work, which is of course not ideal, but it underlines why we must all do as much as we can with what we have.

"Translink and NI Water will benefit from a total of £43m between them. Given the well documented issues around wastewater constraints, I have taken the decision to allocate half of my Department's capital allocation to NIW so that we can help unlock the housing pressures across the North – a key commitment in the draft Programme for Government."

Concluding, John O'Dowd said: "Decades of cuts and underfunding have no doubt taken their toll, but I am determined that infrastructure, which is the starting point for everything that makes society work, will continue to deliver positive change right across the North."