SCORES of road improvement schemes and school building projects could be put on hold or scrapped altogether because of a Government spending squeeze threatening County Hall funding.

The threat stems from changes affecting the way in which councils repay money they borrow for large-scale capital projects that often cost tens of millions of pounds.

The switch means Kent County Council could no longer get government support to repay money it has borrowed to fund such work.

As a result, council taxpayers would effectively end up picking up the tab.

According to KCC’s ruling Conservative administration, that will place a question mark against long-awaited road and school improvements that are in the pipeline over the next three years.

Cllr Keith Ferrin, Conservative cabinet member for highways, warned KCC would be unable to make dangerous roads safer or improve others.

“There would be no option for us to do anything other than the most basic work. If we had a stretch of road which was a safety hazard, we would have no money to deal with it. We really would be in dangerous circumstances,” he said.

In three years' time, if ministers followed through with their threat, KCC would be spending less than half the amount it currently does on road maintenance and improvements, he added.

Conservative finance spokesman Cllr Nick Chard said KCC risked being capped - that is, being told by the Government if could not set a budget above a certain amount.

He said: “The cost of borrowing will fall on the council taxpayer. If that does happen, there is a danger of us going above the five per cent increase in bills and being threatend with capping.”

But opposition Labour group leader Cllr Mike Eddy accused the Tories of political shroud waving. He said that the threat only applied to new schemes, not those already agreed by KCC for the next three years.

“Any withdrawal of Government suppport for borrowing will only affect new borrowing,” he stressed.

KCC is due to hold talks with ministers over the issues soon.