As of April 2026, North Yorkshire Council (NYC) has issued a “letter before action” to the North Yorkshire Combined Authority.
The “letter before action” is an opportunity to come to an agreement gain agreement between York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority (YNYCA) and North Yorkshire Council.
The council is considering a judicial review following a dispute over a £20 million funding decision related to road repairs.
Key Details
The council claims a recent budget decision for the Transport Capital Programme (2026–2030) was made unlawfully without their backing.
NYC leaders argue that changes to the funding formula will divert £4 million of their maintenance allocation to the City of York Council and that the Mayor has “top-sliced” government funds for other schemes, leading to a total projected loss of £20 million for North Yorkshire roads.
The council’s “letter before action” alleges that the decision-making process was flawed and breached the combined authority’s constitution, which NYC argues requires unanimous consensus for such budgetary matters.
North Yorkshire Council’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said:
Our position on this is very factual and clear, it is also backed up by expert legal advice.
We are challenging the mayor’s decision to change the way highways maintenance money has been allocated by the Department for Transport for more than 10 years. A decision which will mean there is £20 million less to maintain roads and pavements across our county over the next four years.
We believe there is no evidence or data to support the change in formula, and the loss of funds will have a significant negative impact on our maintenance programme. We believe that the decision is a change to the combined authority’s budget, and as such, approval should have included the leader of the council’s approval. It did not.
We believe the mayoral combined authority has not followed its own organisation’s legal constitution in making this decision. This point cannot be left unchallenged because it could pave the way for further similar decision making in the future.
We are taking this action because we believe the residents, businesses and visitors to our county expect us to fight for the fair funds to keep roads and pavements in the best possible condition here.
This is not something we are taking lightly, but we do believe that ensuring decisions are taken legally, transparently and fairly is worth fighting for.
James Farrar, York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Chief Executive said:
We can confirm that legal correspondence has been received and is being reviewed.
As this issue may relate to potential legal proceedings, we are unable to comment, however we can confirm that the decision challenged by North Yorkshire Council resolved to provide North Yorkshire Council with £63.8million for highways maintenance in 2026/27, up from £57.8 million in previous years.
- The Department for Transport (DfT) has a formula which is used to calculate highways authorities spend on highways maintenance.
- Until last year this allocation came directly to those highways’ authorities.
- Last year it was channelled through the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority – but no changes to the amounts were made and the entire funds were received here.
- Based on data used, the DfT allocated 93% of the highways maintenance funds available to North Yorkshire and seven per cent to York.
- This year the mayor has changed the allocation to 90 per cent for North Yorkshire and 10 per cent for York.
- Prior to splitting the money, the mayor also removed £43.38 million from the maintenance grant from central government for a number of pots both councils can bid for shares of.
- These decisions leave City of York Council with additional funds of about £4 million over the four-year settlement and North Yorkshire losing more than £20 million over the four years.
- In challenging the decision-making, the council has spent £1,500 on expert barrister advice that we hope will see the £20 million reallocated to North Yorkshire’s highways.
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