A councillor has accused the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire of behaving like Dick Turpin over his plans for highways spending.
The clash between Mayor David Skaith and Cllr Andrew Williams took place at the combined authority overview and scrutiny committee in York today (Tuesday 17 March).
The Mayor was asked why he wanted to divert more highway maintenance cash from North Yorkshire to the city of York budget.
Cllr Williams (Independent, Ripon Minster & Moorside) said: “My understanding is that this coming year, without consultation, you’re actually planning to significantly reduce the amount of funding that will be available to North Yorkshire Council.
“So the DFT (Department for Transport) is recommending that over £59 million should be coming directly to North Yorkshire Council, and it is gone for a capital programme on that basis.
“Your current draft proposals indicate that the authority will get £52 million, so it will actually have to cut £7 million of the planned highway maintenance works if you carry on with your current proposals, which would be deeply damaging to North Yorkshire.
“There’s nothing more dangerous to a cyclist than a pothole in the road, quite frankly.
“I’m confused as to why you believe that you know better than the DFT in terms of the allocation of resources, which has been an approved formula, which has been applied consistently for years.
“Now we seem to have Dick Turpin reinvented and there’s a new highway robber taking funds from North Yorkshire.”
Labour Mayor Skaith asked Cllr Williams to keep his comments professional: “I don’t like to be referred to as Dick Turpin.”
The chair of the meeting then called for order.
Mayor Skaith said: “Either way, you’ll be getting more money than you’ve ever had.
“You’ve got a four year settlement, which means you can actually plan your work. And it also needs to be emphasised that in two of the last five years, North Yorkshire underspent on their highways funding.”
Earlier in the exchange he said: “We’re currently working on the new formulas because what we’ve been asked by DFT to basically not do things how they were previously, to do things better.
“And obviously, we’re taking into consideration not only the length of mileage of roads, but also much more emphasis on the amount of vehicle that use said roads as well.
“So we’re exploring all alternatives at the minute.
“Regardless of what the formula is, both York and North Yorkshire will see record amounts of investment over the next four years, more money than each authority has ever received in terms of road maintenance and improvements.”
