ALMOST £3 million has been added to Southampton’s highways budget, as civic chiefs look to improve and tackle problems on the city’s roads.

Councillors approved the £2.98 million cash increase after the authority received several grants from central government funds.

This means the council’s overall roads funding pot now stands at £24.03 million.

Councillor Jacqui Rayment, transport boss at Southampton City Council, said: “The additional funding will aid the current investment programme that is underway in Southampton to improve the city’s highways network.

“This investment will make a significant contribution to the council’s commitment to ensuring Southampton has a strong and sustainable economy and is an attractive and modern city where people are proud to live and work.”

As part of the decision, made at the authority’s Full Council meeting, £205,000 was added to the Pothole Action Fund Project through a Department for Transport (DfT) pothole grant, which will be used to mend road damage across the city.

Another £725,000 was approved to be given to the Highways Network Delivery Project. This cash came from a DfT highway maintenance incentive element grant (£520,000), and from the Community Infrastructure Levy (£210,000).

As well as this, £606,000 was added to the Principal Roads fund, £956,000 went to the Classified Roads pot, and another £484,000 topped up the Unclassified Roads budget. These were all funded by a DfT Local Transport Plan grant (£430,000), £970,000 from CIL funding, and £650,000 from an unnamed government grant.

Earlier this year, the city council set up new Find and Fix teams, that hunt potholes and fill them in as and when they find them.

The potholes are ones which haven’t been reported and was part of a multi-million pound scheme to improve roads.