THE first £2 million was expected to be approved on Wednesday (April 1) for a highways maintenance programme in Somerset to clear gullies and tackle faded road markings, broken signs, and overgrown pathways.

Somerset Council wants to make an April start on a three-year work schedule costing a total of £5 million.

A spokesperson said: “Current maintenance programmes prioritise safety critical works, which can mean lower-level issues like faded road markings, broken signs, and overgrown hedges are left unresolved, often for years.”

Now, new spending proposals will deliver a range of visible improvements, such as:

• Clearing more drains and gullies

• Fixing and cleaning road signs

• Repainting faded road markings

• Collecting litter

• Clearing overgrown vegetation, particularly on walking/cycling routes

Improvements will also be made to the council’s public reporting system, to make it even easier for residents to highlight any issues on the roads.

The work will be carried out by one of the authority’s highways contractors, Kier, which will deal with signing, lining, and gully clearance, as well as the council’s own open spaces team, which will tackle overgrown vegetation and other tidying work alongside collecting litter.

The enhanced gully emptying will see an intensive year-long clearance in areas vulnerable to one in 100-year flood events, adding up to about 65,000 extra gullies during the current year.

The £5 million maintenance programme will run for three years to 2029 with the aim of making a substantial visible difference to communities from the start.

Somerset executive Cllr Richard Wilkins said: “Urgent, safety critical maintenance of roads is paramount, and that will, of course, remain a key focus.

“But what we have heard time and time again is those less safety critical issues, dirty, damaged signs, cycleways and pathways that are continually overgrown, faded road markings, these are the things that frustrate people when they are left neglected.”