Northern Ireland is to benefit from a £10m investment to improve the condition of the rural roads there, the Minister for Infrastructure, Chris Hazzard, has announced.
Minister Hazzard has earmarked additional funding announced by the Minister for Finance earlier this month for resurfacing work on 1,000 rural roads across the North.
“I am delighted to announce that rural communities across the region will benefit from a £10m road improvement package to stop deterioration and repair severe defects on their local road network.
“The improvements will target around 1,000 rural roads, repairing many short lengths of road (20-50m) in particularly poor condition, together with a number of longer resurfacing schemes of around 1km.
“In this difficult financial period, it is of course necessary to prioritise resources, but for too long rural communities have dropped down the priority list.”
The Minister for Infrastructure said that this funding for the North’s rural roads will go some way to addressing that imbalance and giving rural communities across the region roads that are fit for purpose and that will stand the test of time and weather.
The Department is currently considering areas in greatest need and will draw up programmes to enable work to start as soon as possible, it confirmed.
