Following their failure to inform councillors of 142 cancelled highways repairs, Hertfordshire County Council have now produced a list of this year's deferred schemes. 

The deferred schemes form part of the county council's Integrated Works Programme (IWP) which focuses on highways maintenance.

The cancellations came to light when Liberal Democrat Councillor Stephen Giles-Medhurst questioned why the road resurfacing scheme for Bridger Close, approved in March, had not got its "road closed" notices up when work was due to start. 

After undertaking a review of the IWP the county council decided to defer a number of this year's highways maintenance schemes to avoid overspending.

Rob Smith, deputy director of environment at Hertfordshire County Council, said: "So far this year, we have delivered approximately £20 million of highway maintenance schemes. 

"But this has been a somewhat untypical year. We have had a number of financial pressures on the structural maintenance service this year, in no small part due to the damage done to the network by the severe wet weather last winter. 

"You may recall that we were successful in bidding for serveral lots of additional government funding and that a further £1m was released from Hertfordshire County Council reserves. However, even with this additional funding, we are not able to completely cover the additional costs and have thereforereached the point where we have had to defer the majority of the remaining maintenance work on the IWP for 2014/15 in order to avoid overspending the available budget. 

"I apologise for the fact that you have not had advance notice of these changes." 

The deferred schemes have been added to next year's IWP as an interim measure, although officers and appropriate members are looking to see if there is any possibility of delivering any of the schemes this year. 

However 108 schemes cannot be reinstated into this year's programme due to the weather constraints.

The cancelled schemes include Farmers Close in Leavesden, Green View Close in Bovingdon, and Long Elms, Summerhouse Way, The Graylings and Upper highway/Hazlewood in Abbots Langley.