MORE than £18m will go towards improvements to things like roads, footpaths, bridges, and street lighting in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) next year.
The council’s cabinet on Wednesday, March 19, agreed a supplementary capital programme worth £18.41m for 2025-26.
This includes £6.94m for carriageways, £556,000 for footways, £200,000 for unadopted roads, £9.95m for structures, £270,000 for parks structures, £330,000 for street lighting, £120,000 for traffic management, and £40,000 for car parks.
When it comes to carriageways £4.744m is proposed on a list of schemes and there will be £700,000 to carry out minor surface repairs, £1m of surface dressing and preventative treatments, £100,000 of fencing and safety barrier repairs, £100,000 of lining and signing, £150,000 for repairs to ironwork, and £150,000 for emergency repairs.
For footways, an identified programme of resurfacing and surface treatment costing £556,000 will be funded in 2025-26.
On unadopted roads, in addition to the £200,000 set aside for a number of sites, grant funding of £120,000 has been applied for and if successful it will lead to an upgrade of Kingsbury Place, Llwydcoed, to an adoptable standard.
For street lighting the £330,000 allocation is split into £200,000 for traffic signals refurbishment and £130,000 towards street lighting column and supply cables replacement.
A total budget of £9.95m (including £4.75m of previously identified slippage from 2024-25) has been allocated towards highways structures for 2025-26.
This funding includes projects like the Brook Street footbridge in Ystrad, the Afon Cynon bridge between Cwmbach and the Asda Roundabout in Aberdare, confined space culvert repairs, retaining wall repairs and replacements, the Rhigos rock netting, the A4059 Commercial Street footbridge in Abedare, the Llanwonno Road Railway Bridge in Stanleytown and Pontygwaith, railings on the approach to Berw Road bridge in Pontypridd a retaining wall at River Row, Abercynon, and a culvert at Mill Road, Ynysybwl.
In terms of parks structures a budget of £250,000 is allocated in 2025-26 in addition to the £20,000 being carried forward from 2024-25. The funding will replace two footbridges which are currently closed due to their condition.
There is £120,000 set aside for traffic management which will include small-scale schemes and provide safety aids such as warning signs, the introduction of traffic orders, and residents’ parking.
An ongoing programme of repairs and upgrades to the council’s car parks will continue with a £40,000 allocation in 2025-26.
