The combined budget for highways and transportation in Lincolnshire will be just under £134m in the next financial year, and school transport will take the lion’s share.
Rising numbers of pupils with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities has seen pressure on the budget – since 2021 there has been an 8.5 per cent increase in pupil numbers and day pupil numbers are up by 32.2 per cent.
A report to the county’s Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee, due to meet on Monday, looks at the budget implications for the department in the coming year. Of the proposed revenue budget, Transport is allocated £76.36m and Highways £57.56m
“There is a £2.6m cost increase for home to school transport. This demand-led budget in delivering Lincolnshire’s home to schools transport policy continues to see higher costs reflecting price and activity increases seen in 2025/26 (£1.3m),” says the report.
Pupil growth in eligible transport from mainstream pupil projections will see an increasing budget requirement of £1.5m.
Financial ‘efficiencies’ via the delivery of ‘route optimisation’ and re-tendering will see around £1m of savings.
“It should be noted that the cost pressures projected beyond 2026/27 are of a lower level than has been the recent trend, which is reflective of current service projections around price and demand pressures not being as high as in recent years.”
But the rise this coming year has been prompted by factors including fuel and vehicle prices along with parts and drivers’ wages. Operating in a large rural county with lower levels of market competition also has an impact.
“The service, through its strong governance and embedded practices, continues to be proactive in undertaking comprehensive route optimisation reviews, market engagement and re-tendering exercises to ensure best value is achieved,” the report says.
The suggested Highways budget increase of £3.662m is ‘driven by commercial contract inflationary pressures and additional budget for improvements to the council’s drainage offer’, contract inflation is higher than both the Consumer Prices Index and Retail Price Index at 4.5 per cent.
Over three consecutive years the Highways Service has experienced budget pressures within the statutory fault response service – this year’s budget was ‘adjusted by £1.5m to reflect this.’
“Council commenced a comprehensive review of budgets, which has sought to identify opportunities to reduce cost to help mitigate the forecast medium term financial plan deficit from 2026/7 onwards.”
