Taxpayers will save hundreds of thousands of pounds as Surrey becomes the first county to roll out a Google Street style software to speed up road improvements.

The software is expected to save Surrey County Council at least £100,000 and thousands of man-hours a year because highways teams will be able to view zoomable pictures of roads overlaid with detailed information on the state of the roads.

The council said the roll-out of the software will mean faster decisions on where work needs to be done.

John Furey, Surrey County Council’s cabinet member for highways, said: "This year we ploughed £3m saved on our roads budget back into doing repairs, and this software means we’ll continue to give value for money while improving Surrey’s roads."

The software is expected to be introduced this autumn.