CONCERNS have been flagged up about the costs of maintaining Worcester City Council's vehicle fleet.

A small cross-party working group of politicians are going to launch an investigation into how much taxpayers' money is going on council vehicles like refuse trucks and sweepers.

Conservative Councillor Chris Mitchell, a former deputy leader of the city, says despite spending £1.5 million on new vehicles last year the "unplanned" maintenance bills are still too high.

Last year £510,000 went on maintenance costs for council vehicles, spilling over the budget by £200,000.

Councillor Mitchell held the finance role within the cabinet last year before the Tories lost control to Labour.

He said: "I get a very nervous feeling that our maintenance costs are too high and that our fleet bill is too much.

"I actually did some benchmarking with a similar sized council, Exeter, and last year our 'unplanned' maintenance costs were £4,200 per vehicle but there's was £2,752.

"That is a fifteen hundred pound difference per vehicle and that's after I spent £1.5 million on new vehicles, so I could hardly be accused of neglecting it."

Around £1.5 million has been spent on seven new street sweepers, three refuse pick-up trucks and nine other vehicles for workers in the cleaner and greener department to use.

That helped replace the oldest models in the council's fleet, but it has more than 60 different vehicles used for a variety of services like cleaning, jetting, deliveries and refuse pick-ups.

A council report on last year's bill calls it "an unpredictable area to forecast", but says for 2016/17 staff are predicting the bill to only go £60,000 over budget.

The report also says the condition of the vehicles, and the maintenance costs are being monitored "on a daily basis".

Some of the costs include bills for hiring vehicles, with bosses currently renting a jetting device from Worcestershire County Council to clean the streets rather than spend an estimated £200,000 on a new one.

The cross-party working group will be asked to report back to the council's performance, management and budget scrutiny committee.