Whether it will make funding available in order to ensure (a) that the Bridgeguard 3 assessment programme will be completed and (b) that an…

On 25 February, I awarded an extra £20 million in grant in financial year 2001-02 to local authorities to speed up assessment and repair work to local roads and bridges. This is in addition to the extra £70 million included in capital allocations between financial year 2001-02 to 2003-04 to tackle the backlog of repairs and maintenance to local roads and bridges.It is for local authorities to prioritise the upgrading of any bridges and to allocate the necessary funding from the resources available to them. It is also their responsibility to take forward any action required to complete the Bridgeguard 3 assessment programme and to carry out any necessary work identified by the programme.