NEAR-bankrupt Somerset Council is planning to spend up to £5 million over the next three years to smarten up the county’s roads, pavements, and cycleways.

The authority’s road maintenance programme currently focuses on safety critical works, which can mean leaving lower priority issues such as faded road markings and broken signs unresolved, often for many years.

Now, it plans new spending proposals which will deliver a range of improvements, including clearing more drains and gullies, fixing and cleaning road signs, repainting faded road markings, collecting litter, and clearing overgrown vegetation, particularly near to walking and 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.

Council leader Cllr Bill Revans said: “As a listening council we know the public want us to do much more than simply keep our roads safe, and we want to see improvements across our council area.

“We will continue to prioritise pothole repairs and are working hard to clear the backlog caused by the many weeks of wet weather and flooding we have experienced this winter.

“We plan to allocate additional funds to tackle the backlog of potholes, if we need to.

“Now that we have next year’s budget proposals ready, we can also look forward to bringing forward our proposals to increase spending in a much-needed programme of additional drain and gully clearance, improving signage and lining on our A and B roads, starting to make sure cycle lanes are clear of overgrowth, and improving our public reporting system.”

The council has identified an initial £2 million of ‘uncommitted funds’ and said it would find more funding.

More than 16,300 road defect reports have been received in Somerset since the start of the year compared to 4,417 for the same time in 2025.