Hadleigh's county councillor Mick Fraser has taken steps to ensure none of his Local Highway's Budget (LHB) will be returned to the Suffolk pot and will be spent on improving the town's roads and pavements.

It has been claimed dozens of road improvement projects in Suffolk will not be finished due to rules around councillors' highways budgets.

A cross party taskforce at Suffolk County Council last year recommended that any highways locality budget, a sum each councillor gets for small-scale road improvement works in their division, that was not spent by December 31 of the year before an election would be reclaimed for the transport budget to ensure it was not wasted.

The council's cabinet agreed that recommendation in the summer, but the opposition Liberal Democrat, Green and Independent group has claimed the decision hasn't taken into consideration the delays caused by Covid-19 in being able to develop those projects.

Councillor Elfrede Brambley-Crawshaw, leader of the Lib Dem, Green and Independent group, said it meant communities would lose out.

However, Cllr Fraser has already made sure his £6,666 budget has already been allocated, even though projects may not be completed by the end of this year.

He has ensured pedestrian safety has improved in Benton Street, the High Street and Lady Lane and will liaise with Hadleigh Town Council, which meets on Thursday, on how to allocate any surplus.

"It is quite a challenge at times for councillors to have their schemes approved by Suffolk, the Highways Authority, and the lead times for them can be years," said Cllr Fraser.

"Recently in Hadleigh we have had drop kerb crossing points on the High Street and on Lady Lane to allow for safer crossing by those residents who have to use mobility scooters, wheelchairs, and parents with small children in prams/pushchairs.

"I have funding committed to repaint clearer road markings on some of our busier roads, where Suffolk Highways are unable due to their budget restrictions and to improve traffic flow at the lower end of Angel Street by adjusting traffic restrictions there.

"My largest project which I have spent this entire council working on, is to improve pedestrian safety along Benton Street. This will involve the rearranging of parking restrictions with the addition of some build outs, which are designed to prevent drivers mounting and driving along the pavements.

"There have been over 100 vehicle incursions on the footways per day recorded here, which puts pedestrians here in great danger of harm or injury. I am delighted to say that the traffic regulation order for this scheme has recently been sighed off with works scheduled for early spring 2021.

"I am liaising closely with Hadleigh Town Council and other groups to see what schemes we can pledge funding to with the remainder of my LHB before the end of year deadline."

Cllr Brambley-Crawshaw said: ""These budgets are one of the few ways to make a difference in local communities. They can be used for new yellow lines, resident parking areas or installing zebra crossings.

"The process to get a project finished is usually time consuming but the pandemic has slowed down the process further on the council side, and councillors have also faced difficult time constraints with many directly involved in community responses to the pandemic."

Ms Brambley-Crawshaw said it had taken her three-and-a-half years to get a series of traffic regulation orders through the process for her division because the red tape involved made it tricky for both councillors and offices to progress projects quickly.

She said that "dozens of projects will now remain unfinished and local communities will not benefit from the money."

The county council is due to have elections in May 2021, which is why the unspent budget is due to be reclaimed.

But a council spokesman said that the process was designed to ensure unspent taxpayer money was not lost and the December deadline needed to be kept because of the budget process happening in January.

The spokesman said: "These dates support the council's budget-setting process, enabling officers to present accurate information in a timely fashion.

"To extend the dates already agreed by the cross-party panel would potentially cause confusion over availability of future locality budget levels."

It is not yet clear how much has not been spent and is due to be reclaimed county-wide.