The campaign being mounted by The Highland Council to win more funding for roads maintenance has recorded an early success with news that the Scottish Executive is to allow the council to spend an extra £1.79 million on road repairs over the next few months.

Councillor Charlie King, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Roads Community and Protective Services, said: "This is really good news. It demonstrates a recognition by the Executive that there is a very real problem on our local roads and this must be welcomed warmly. We will be pressing them to increase the spending year on year so we can begin to reverse the long trend of decline on our crumbling roads infrastructure."

The Council is currently writing to 100,000 Highland householders to advise them of the funding shortfall on the local road network, which stretches to 4,118 miles of surface and 1,520 bridges.

The Council estimates that it will cost £82 million to bring the road network up to an acceptable condition and a further £55 million to strengthen bridges.

At the present rate of progress, the Council is only able to resurface a road every 200 years.