ROADS in Okehampton, Tavistock and across West Devon will benefit from the announcement of a £9.1-million programme to restore roads damaged during the wettest winter on record. Devon County Council has developed a programme of almost 400 repair schemes, using the Pothole Repair Funding that Devon received from central Government, to improve the surface or drainage resilience of more than 80 miles of roads in the county. Among roads to be improved in West Devon are Duke Street, Brook Street, and Abbey Rise in Tavistock, Castle Road in Okehampton, Durdon Cross at Northlew, Bridge Street and Market Street in Hatherleigh, Station Road and Bedford Street in Bere Alston, and the A386 roundabout at Yelverton. This is in addition to repair work which started in Devon in June using the £7-million Severe Weather Recovery funding, in response to the damage caused over the winter months to the county's 8,000 miles of roads, which is the biggest highway network of any local authority in the country. Altogether, the £16-million of additional funding Devon has been awarded from Government will repair around 120 miles (193km) of roads. Cllr Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council cabinet member for highway management and flood prevention, said: 'This additional funding from Government is providing us with a comprehensive programme to not only repair our roads but also protect them. 'As well as targeting pothole repairs we will also be carrying out more extensive surfacing and drainage work in order to improve the resilience of our highway network. 'We are already working on some of the schemes earmarked with the Severe Weather Recovery funding. 'Although the £16 million we received from Government will be made to go a long way, it won't solve all of our problems overnight, and as we sustained around £24 million worth of damage last winter alone, it unfortunately won't repair everywhere that suffered at the hands of the weather.'