To ask the Scottish Executive how much was spent on road building in the North Ayrshire local authority area in (a) 1996-97, (b) 1997-98, (c) 1998-99, (d) 1999-2000, (e) 2000-01 and (f) 2001-02.

Records of trunk road expenditure are not broken down by local authority area.

For local roads, the information requested is given in tables number 11.1 and 11.5 of Scottish Transport Statistics No. 21, a copy of which is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 23316).

Table 11.1 shows expenditure for all authorities year by year. Table 11.5 breaks the most recent year down by authority. A breakdown by authority for previous years is given in earlier editions of the publication (Bib. numbers 26533, 16385, 8690 and 15770).

Figures are not yet available for the year to March 2002.