A frustrated Warwickshire councillor has questioned the purpose of a discretionary highways fund after being told it would cost £20,000 to paint a zebra crossing and £10,000 to put up a road sign.

The figures were quoted by Cllr Senthil Karadiar during Wednesday's meeting of Warwickshire County Council's communities overview and scrutiny committee, a panel of elected officials that oversees the work of the authority and its partners.

During updates from the council's respective service directors, Cllr Karadiar welcomed a discussion around the "transparency" of delegated highways budgets. 

It is a £2 million per year fund that is equally split between all 57 county councillors in office, giving each a little more than £35,000 to spend on highways works that their residents want but that might not be a high enough priority within the scope of council budgets.

However, Cllr Karadiar highlighted how it was not as useful as it might sound. 

"I was told just to draw a zebra crossing would cost between the £20,000 and £25,000 marks, and then to put extra signs on an existing sign board will cost around £10,000," he said. 

"As a councillor I could have done four zebra crossings and four extra signs in my whole (four-year) tenure. Is it worth having this delegated budget route? 

"It gives a false sense of hope to councillors that we are going to do something. Why doesn't it go into the main stream (of council funding) rather than allocating a small budget to us and saying that it is going to fix every other problem in your ward? In reality it is not."

Warwickshire County Council's director of highways Richard Fenwick replied: "I would agree with you, (it is) something we have discussed with a few members, the cost of certain aspects of that. 

"Through the estimation process and then getting the quotes back, I do want to provide more transparency around how that is worked out because there is nothing to hide.

"Just yesterday (Tuesday, November 25) I was talking to (council contractors) Balfour Beatty about including the schedule of rates and the cost calculator used on them so at least members (councillors) can see the cost of each bit of what they are getting.

"We always welcome the challenge over whether that could be cheaper elsewhere but we try to get the best rates possible. The maintenance contract, because of the economies of scale, is often the best way to do that.

"We are working on including more detail around that and focusing on getting the initial estimates closer to what it ends up costing. It can be frustrating when there is that imbalance when it actually gets to the detailed design of the engineers not quite (matching) what the finger in the air was at the start."

Mr Fenwick added that any changes to the fund, which is a staple part of the council's budget, would be a political decision. 

"There are options, other ways of delivering these kinds of works, and that capital funding could be spent in different ways," he added.

"Historically it was delivered differently here but likewise, I am sure a lot of members would say that they appreciate having the funding there to do things outside the criteria and policies that we set for other capital spend.

"There is no set way that officers (the council's employed professionals) would ever steer it towards. We will deliver what is considered to be the best use of that capital funding."