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10
Sept
Council warned combined authority of ‘red line’ over pothole funding, emails show
North Yorkshire Council warned combined authority officials that a change in highways funding was a “red line”, according to new documents.
Labour mayor David Skaith, who chairs the combined authority, changed the funding formula for highways this year to allocate a bigger slice of the pie to Labour-run City of York Council at the expense of Tory-controlled North Yorkshire Council.
As a result, £20.5 million of roads funding was moved from North Yorkshire to York.
The move infuriated local Conservatives, who claimed the money had been raided from North Yorkshire's roads in a nakedly political act.
The Stray Ferret used a freedom of information request to ask York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority to provide correspondence between the authority and North Yorkshire Council on the matter.
Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire Council, pictured in January 2024.
We asked for the information as we believe the public has a right to know about discussions between senior public authority officials involving millions of pounds of taxpayer funding.
The combined authority initially declined to provide the information on the grounds of “preserving legal professional privilege” in light of a potential legal challenge from North Yorkshire Council.
The Stray Ferret challenged the decision on the grounds that it was in the combined authority's interest to be transparent on the matter.
Following the legal threat being dropped, the authority released the information to us.
‘Red line’
The documents span the period from December 2025 to March 2026, when the mayor’s proposal was made public.
The email correspondence shows that North Yorkshire informed the combined authority on February 27 — three weeks before the proposal was published — of what could “theoretically” be removed from the council’s highways maintenance programme if the change went ahead.
The officer, whose name is redacted in the email, goes on to state that such a move would be a “red line” for North Yorkshire Council.
It says:
Following on from our meeting on Monday - please see attached headline an overview on what would theoretically be removed from the highway's maintenance programmes, if the reallocation of funding from maintenance to improvements took place
As discussed, reallocation of funding from maintenance to improvements remains a red line for North Yorkshire Council.
The officer goes on to list schemes which could be delivered for every £1 million of funding which was estimated to be lost.
The list includes:
- Carry out 22km of carriageway surface dressing treatments
- Treat 13km of roads with a micro asphalt treatment, which deals with surface defects and provides a long-lasting surface. For context this would be 60% of residential streets in Northallerton or 100% of residential streets in Norton
- Retexture 33km of roads, restoring surface texture and skid resistance and further extending the life of the carriageway
- Apply a rejuvenator solution to 44km of roads which helps to prolong the life of roads in good existing condition and slow their deterioration.
- Deliver in the region of 20,000-25,000m2 of carriageway patching.
- Deliver 4km of carriageway resurfacing & reconstruction which would help to deal with longstanding carriageway issues
- Deliver 14km of footway resurfacing
- Refurbish (waterproofing) of 6 reinforced concrete bridge decks or
- Redeck 4 small concrete bridge structures or strengthen 10 bridge arches
- Deliver 5 landslip schemes
A combined authority officer, whose name is also redacted, responded on March 2 to say that discussions were “ongoing at political level” and that it would “take stock” of the position at a meeting later that week.
Mr Skaith would go on to approve the change in funding at a combined authority board meeting on March 27.
Legal action
North Yorkshire Council threatened to take legal action over Mr Skaith's proposal.
Senior Conservatives described the move as “disgraceful” and the council sent a pre-action letter to the combined authority threatening to take the decision to judicial review.
However, Cllr Carl Les, Tory leader of the council, confirmed in July that the legal challenge had been dropped.
He said:
It was clear that he would hold his line about proportions, improvements and the mayor’s pothole fund. It was also clear to me that this is actually his privilege and this privileged position is only going to grow in time, especially with the likely new Prime Minister next week.
As such, I saw little point in spending money on a judicial review process. However, in the spirit of wanting to work together rather than against each other, we have agreed that our officer teams will meet to discuss the local transport plan to see if we can come up with more common ground before the decision-making time in October.
Total roads funding to both North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council has improved under the settlement — but ill feeling persists over the decision of the York-based mayor to grant a greater slice of the pie to his Labour colleagues in York.
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