The county council will invest £60.7 million maintaining and improving highways in West Sussex over the coming year following the budget for 2026 to 2027 being agreed at the meeting of Full Council in February.
Councillor Joy Dennis, Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, said: “I understand how frustrating it is for our residents when their daily journeys are impacted by poor road conditions and roadworks.
“This budget demonstrates our continued commitment to improving our road network and keeping West Sussex moving. It not only recognises the important work we’re carrying out on the roads across the county but also provides much needed resources to continue to tackle the issues we’re seeing.
“Over the last five years we have spent £273.6 million on improving and maintaining our highways. £150.9 million came from council funds, with the remaining £122.7 million provided by the Department for Transport (DfT). The majority of this, an average of 73.6% over the five years, was spent on preventative works such as surfacing, large scale patching and drainage works.
“This ongoing commitment has been recognised by the DfT in their recent Local road maintenance ratings, where we received a ‘green’ status in the spend category, acknowledging our significant investment into maintaining the county’s roads.
“With over 2,500 miles of roads, the equivalent distance of driving from Chichester to Rome and back, we face many challenges. This budget will help us to mitigate the continued pressures on our roads caused by the impact of climate change, including extreme weather events which has contributed to recent wide-scale flooding across the highways.”
Councillors agreed to invest £168 million in funding from our capital programme over the next five years to continue to make improvements on our highway network.
Over the next 12 months, our highways capital delivery programme will spend £40 million of this money delivering over 230 schemes across the county. Of these projects, 130 will involve carriageway patching and resurfacing, with funding allocated to repairing damage caused by the recent flooding.
At the same time, £20.7 million of revenue funding will be spent on ongoing maintenance, including repairing potholes, small-scale carriageway patching, drainage maintenance, vegetation management and winter gritting.
Councillor Jeremy Hunt, Cabinet Member for Finance and Property, said: “This year we are scheduled to receive £24.8 million from the DfT for our capital projects, the remaining funding for the work we will carry out on our highways will come from county council and external funds.
“A potential further £7.5 million of funding will be made available by the DfT should we satisfy their performance-based criteria around preventative maintenance.
“The council has also been able to allocate a further £2.4 million to our revenue budget, to be utilised as needed once we have been able to accurately assess the damage caused by the recent flooding.
“The increasing demand for council services and rising costs mean it’s essential that our limited resources are carefully aligned with the priorities in [Our Council Plan] to ensure we provide services which offer maximum value for residents and support a prosperous economy.”
