To ask the Minister for Infrastructure for her assessment of the impact of receiving no additional resource funding in the October monitoring round for winter service.

The average cost of providing winter service is £7m but can be as high as £10m in more severe winter conditions.

I have already allocated £3m from the Opening 2020/21 resource baseline budget as a contribution to funding for Winter Service. A recent Covid bidding exercise provided a further £5m funding for Winter Gritting Services but, as you are aware, a further bid for £2m in October Monitoring was unsuccessful.

While we can’t predict the weather over the winter period, the funding in place will only deliver winter service for typical weather conditions. If the weather is above winter averages this will present budget difficulties to the department and if considered necessary, a bid for additional funding will be made as part of January Monitoring.