Yorkshire Tour de France roads get £6m in repairs
Roads on the route of the Tour de France have received almost £6m in improvements, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
The cycle race begins in Leeds on 5 July and will travel through North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire.
RICS said the figures showed that £4.5m of the money had been taken from future council budgets.
Work includes resurfacing, road strengthening and installing signs.
The figures were obtained by RICS from councils in Yorkshire via Freedom of Information requests.
They show that North Yorkshire County Council has spent £4.2m.
In West Yorkshire, Kirklees Council, Bradford Metropolitan District Council and Leeds City Council have budgeted a combined total of up to £950,000.
Calderdale Council has undertaken £600,000 of work, entirely brought forward from future years.
The City of York Council made a £200,000 contribution to road maintenance from its Capital Contingency Fund.
In Sheffield, the city council has prioritised work on the route as part of its scheduled road maintenance programme.
Rob Hindle, chairman of RICS Yorkshire and Humber Regional Board, said he was concerned about the impact of Tour de France spending on future road maintenance.
"While we welcome the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire and all the economic benefits it will bring, we certainly hope that by bringing forward so much work on Yorkshire's roads to before the race, the region won't be left without adequate maintenance for years to come," he said.
"We don't want a feast today if it means a famine tomorrow."
North Yorkshire County Council said that the work carried out on its roads "would have been needed within the next five years anyway".
"We have just brought forward that work in preparation for the race," a spokeswoman said.
"We haven't reduced future highway maintenance budgets as a result and money hasn't been diverted from elsewhere."