County to lose £8m of road cash

Devon County Council is cutting road improvements

A Devon councillor is warning the county's roads will become more dangerous if funding cuts are enforced by central government.

Changes to the formula for calculating spending on highways have led to an £8m cut in spending in Devon.

County Councillor David Morrish said the county's roads had suffered from underfunding for years and improvement plans have had to be dropped because of cuts.

The cuts do not apply to the A30, A38 the A303 or the M5, which are paid for by central government.

More accidents

David Morrish has described the government's assessment of road maintenance spending as "bizarre".

He said the calculation allows for twice as much to be spent on a suburban cul-de-sac than on busy A roads.

He also said there are more accidents on badly maintained roads and that even a pothole can cause a cyclist to fall off their bike.

He said: "If you want to downgrade the economy of this county, then downgrade the highways network, that will do it quicker than anything I can think of."

The government said it was committed to modernising local transport as part of its overall strategy to create a sustainable and integrated transport system.