DUDLEY Council is set to spend more than £3m on potholes and improvements to street lighting in the coming financial year.

The cash for 2015/16 is from the government’s Local Highways Maintenance Capital Block Funding and is part of nearly £16m allocated to the borough for the next six years.

Some of the cash will be spent on upgrading lighting to new energy efficient systems which can be centrally monitored and controlled.

Councillor Khurshid Ahmed, Dudley cabinet member for transportation, said: “We welcome the funding to make improvements to our road networks at a time when we are seeing reduced government funding for services.

“However, the money we get for highways is only a drop in the ocean of what is really needed to have a properly maintained network of roads.

“The harsh winters continue to have a huge impact on the state of the highways but we will continue to tackle potholes and other defects as much as we can.”