A group of north-east councillors has called for road safety to be made a spending priority in the authority’s next budget.
The Democratic Independent and Green Group (Digg) members Paul Johnston and Martin Ford are the first councillors to issue a draft budget ahead of crunch talks later this month.
The pair are calling for £250,000 to be ring-fenced and used to protect the public on the region’s roads. It would be used for traffic calming and speed reduction measures.
Last night Mr Johnston, who represents Mid-Formartine, said: “Speeding on local roads, and the road safety issues it causes, come up again and again at community council meetings and in individual representations to councillors.
“It’s an issue that never goes away.”
Aberdeenshire Council is facing another year of significant cuts with a budget black hole expected to stretch to £10million.
That figure is on top of spending reductions already announced earlier this year.
Mr Johnston added: “With further significant savings required in next year’s budget, there’s going to be no new or spare money for anything.
“So to find increased funding for priorities, the only realistic option is to shift funding from something less important.”
Mr Ford said: “Digg is looking for a way to redirect funding towards helping reduce speeding traffic on our rural roads and in our towns and villages.
“And we need to do that without cutting some other vital service. The Digg aim to have a range of draft budget proposals ready for the November full council meeting, and will welcome the opportunity to get feedback and comment on these before
the council sets its revenue budget for 2017/18 next February.”
Aberdeenshire Council has changed the way the budget process is handled this year. As part of the confidence and supply agreement between the Diggs and the Partnership coalition, draft budgets will be presented later this month.
Previously each group announced its spending proposals on budget day in February, a tradition which has been branded “political theatre”.
