A £12 MILLION plan to improve Worcestershire's roads can today be revealed - in a major two-year overhaul.

Worcestershire County Council has drawn up new proposals to spend record sums tackling the the worst stretches of highways.

The scheme, called 'Driving Home', will see both urban and rural roads which are are unclassified get a broad blend of improvements including full resurfacing, odd patch work and surface dressing.

County Hall's Conservative leadership wants to start it from April, with the capital spending forming part of the 2016/17 budget proposals due to be voted on in February.

Your Worcester News can reveal how the money will come from £10 million of borrowing and £2 million from the New Homes Bonus, cash from central Government as a reward for overseeing new development.

Although it has not yet drawn up the locations, a new report on it says the spending will focus on areas "in the communities in and around where people live and work".

It also calls the spending "vital", noting that it will be on top of the regular maintenance spending on roads, which the authority has put an extra £500,000 a year into.

The £12 million Driving Home project will be different to the summer's extensive £4 million roads upgrade project, which was just for surface dressing and led to complaints about extra noise down the A449 in Claines.

Some critics have questioned whether surface dressing is the right tactic as it is a temporary measure designed to prolong the life of a road for around 10 years.

The aim will be to simply maintain the main A, B and C roads and improve urban unclassified routes and what the authority calls "local village roads".

Councillor John Smith, the cabinet member for transport, said: "I'm extremely pleased with this, it's something that's been worked on for six or seven months.

"The condition of our roads affects everyone so discussions have been taking place over a plan.

"This will be on top of the base spending (the regular maintenance), we're doing everything we can to improve the road standards."

As your Worcester News revealed last Friday, the draft 2016/17 budget also includes a council tax rise of 3.9 per cent, adding more than £42 to the average band D bill.

Half of the £9 million expected to be raised from that would be ring-fenced and spent on adult social care.

The Tory cabinet is meeting this Thursday to discuss it.

Chancellor George Osborne announced that councils in charge of caring for the vulnerable could go for four per cent tax rises last month.

* To see our report on council tax from last week go HERE.