THE CHAIR of Hillside Community Council John Sutcliffe who previously criticised the condition of rural roads, has said he feels ignored after discovering Angus Council underspent on roads by more than £1.7 million.
Angus Council did not spend £1.739 million of their roads budget in the last financial year, while repairs which were caused by the closure of the A935 Brechin-Montrose road are yet to be carried out in the Hillside area despite concerns over potho
les being raised by the Community Council more than once.
A spokesperson for Angus Council said that around £380,000 was spent repairing potholes between April 2007 and March 2008 in the whole of the county. This equates to 4% of the total budget.
Mr Sutcliffe said: "If they have got money to spend it should be in the country as well, not just in Montrose. We pay our taxes too, yet we are being treated like second class citizens."
According to a report by the director of corporate services, Colin McMahon, £681,000 of the underspend relates to the payment of compensation claims associated with the A92 dual carriageway between Dundee and Arbroath which have yet to be settled.
But this would still leave just over £1 million which could have been spent on other projects.
Hillside Community Council complained about the state of the roads back in February when they were told by head of the Infrastructures Committee - whose remit includes roads - Councillor David May, that there was not and never would be enough money to replace all the potholes. But it seems that there was more money - over £1 million - which part of could have been spent to try repairing the roads.
Mr Sutcliffe said: "I would say to Councillor May he ought to get his facts right. If you do the maths, then someone is telling porky-pies.
"They haven't even been up to spray yellow paint on the road. No attempt has been made to do anything to the roads on this side of the Dun Braes."
Mr Sutcliffe said that he was happy to see that work was going to be carried out, as Angus Council told the Review last week, but he said that the description of the roads where the work was being carried out was not very useful to him and others, as it was not easy to understand which roads they were referring to.
Councillor David May said that a lot of the roads mentioned by Hillside Community Council were in the maintenance programme and that answers were provided to their questions at a meeting in February although he could not remember if Mr Sutcliffe had been present.
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