Meeting documents

Councillor Paul Irwin, the County Council’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation and Mr Keith Carpenter (Head of Asset Management) will be attending the meeting to update Members on the County Council’s Highway Infrastructure Asset Management.

The Committee received a report which explained how Transport for Bucks prioritised capital carriageway schemes.  Councillor Irwin, the County Council’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation and Mr Keith Carpenter (Head of Asset Management) at the County Council attended the meeting to update Members on the related policy and strategy and to answer questions.

 

The County Council’s Highway Infrastructure Asset Management (HIAM) Policy described the principles adopted to achieve the authority’s strategic objectives and the HIAM Strategy.  This took a systematic approach that delivered most efficiently and effectively over the long term.  The work programme was the outcome of the asset management planning process and was therefore aligned and sought to optimally achieve the performance targets and deliver the best value for money.

 

Members were informed that the Department for Transport’s Incentive funding self-assessment questionnaire (22 questions) encouraged authorities to develop longer term programmes of works which were prioritised to best achieve the strategic objectives of the organisation.  Having these longer term programmes allowed authorities to programme work efficiently to give best value and to inform the public and other stakeholders of future works improving satisfaction.

 

Transport for Bucks also took a balanced strategy to determining the carriageway programme and aimed to produce a mix of treatments targeted at both preventative treatments which offer the best value for money in the longer term and deeper resurfacing work to repair those roads that were not in an acceptable condition.

 

It was explained that the road condition was measured for the classified road network using nationally recognised methods which recorded the condition of sections of road as either red (worst), amber or green (best).  Due to the timing of the surveys, they inevitably slightly lagged behind the actual condition, but the impact of increased investment was now becoming clear with steady improvements across all classifications of roads over the last 5 years as shown in the table below.

 

 

The survey used for the Unclassified roads was different and only recorded roads in poor or adequate condition.  In 2013/14 33% of Unclassified Roads had been in poor condition and this had improved to 29% in 2014/15.  Surveys were due to be undertaken again this year and were expected to show further improvement.

 

2015/16 had seen the largest capital carriageway programme in Buckinghamshire to date.  This had resulted in the completion of all previously approved schemes and a number of schemes deferred from earlier rolling programmes.  This allowed for a fresh start to the development of the future programme.  The programme budget for 2015/16 had been £28.3m (£26.4m roads, £1.8m footpaths) , which had been apportioned and achieved the following outcome(s):-

 

Roads                                                     Footpaths

286 schemes treated                              48 schemes treated

Area treated: 1,135,735m²                            Area treated 54,523m²

Approximately 97 miles in length           Approximately 19 miles in length

 

The report had further gone on to explain how candidate schemes were identified and then prioritised before they could be place on the work programme.  Part of this process adopted over the past 4 years had offered each County Councillor a meeting to discuss the priorities for all roads in their Division.

 

Alongside recommendations and suggestions for schemes in their division, Members were provided with information and maps for the works undertaken in the Division, the technical condition of roads, customer contacts, defects repaired and other information that was available.  The Local Area Technician were also available to assist the member and to provide additional local input.  Most members also visited sites often with their LAFs either before or after the meetings.

 

County roads were now split between Strategic (generally classified) roads and Local (generally unclassified) roads.  For the more heavily trafficked Strategic roads Members were provided with a list of potential road repair schemes for their division over the next 3-4 years for comment and input.  For local roads Members, assisted by Officers, determined their local priorities and lists of schemes in priority order were created and circulated.

 

The programme for 2016/17 had been put together having regard to selecting the highest priority candidate schemes for inclusion.  Schemes on the Strategic Network had been prioritised using multi-criteria analysis that considered each scheme’s contribution to achieving the corporate objectives.  The prioritisation criteria listed below were used to develop a Value for Money ranking for each scheme:

·                    Hierarchy.

·                    Condition Data.

·                    Requests from the Public.

·                    Reactive spend.

·                    Insurance Claims.

·                    Safety (skidding resistance).

 

The 2016/17 programme also took into account of consultation feedback, engineering judgement and coordination with other programmes, and other customer feedback and contact throughout the year.

 

The programme budget for 2016/17 was £16m, apportioned as follows:-

·                    Roads - £13.2m for roads – over 200 schemes – (Resurfacing, Surface dressing, Micro-surfacing)

·                    Plane and Patch - £1.8m – a range of small scale repairs to local roads

·                    Footways – £1m – 7 schemes had been identified, with works to be concentrated on three key Town Centres of Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Chesham.

 

Once the work programme was identified it was then delivered as efficiently as possible, and to minimise the occupation of the network through operating the following principles:-

·                     To minimise disruption on the network.

·                     Maximise opportunities for collaborative working between works programmes.

·                     Offer the opportunity to integrate larger and smaller scale works.

·                     To provide collaboration opportunities for smaller scale maintenance minimising the number of road closures and reducing traffic management costs ("Fence to Fence" approach).

 

Following approval of the 2016/17 programme, Transport for Bucks would complete development of a rolling 4 year programme in line with national best practice and update and reprioritise it each year as new data became available.  Consultation and meetings with the Local Members to ensure BCC’s "Think Councillor" approach would also take place.  Footway schemes for 2016/17 were currently targeted at key town centres.  The future strategy for footway schemes was still to be determined and was due to be discussed this summer so that a rolling programme could be developed beginning in 2017

 

Member sought additional information and were informed:-

 

(i)         that TfB had appointed a contractor (Velocopatcher) to repair potholes in rural areas.  Any repairs would be guaranteed for 12 months. 

 

(ii)        that if Bucks experienced a harsh winter, then the County Council would have to consider taking money from reserves for further preventative or maintenance works.  It was also possible that the Department for Transport would provide some additional monies to areas if there was a harsh winter.

 

(c)       that the County Council used their local Members to help prioritise capital carriageway and footway schemes.  All Members had the same amount of money to allocate in their areas, although some had much larger areas than others.  Members were able to identify 2 areas in their Wards in particular need of attention.  All roads were also investigated and inspected periodically.

 

(d)       that 10-15 years ago, the County had been receiving ‘floor funding’ from the Department for Transport.  £1bn annually was divided up between local authorities based on a formula that took account of the number of assets (roads, bridges etc..).  The other part of this assessment was based on the Incentive funding self-assessment questionnaire.  Based on the overall assessment, local authorities received either some or all of their full funding.  The County Council had received full funding for this year.

 

(e)       that the condition report on roads and footways was made available to County Councillors, but there was not reason why it couldn’t be also shared with District Councillors, and would assist them in answering questions from local residents.

 

(f)        that the amount of money that the County Council was able to allocate to the highways budget was limited by the statutory obligations to fund children’s and social services.

 

(g)       that it was recognised that many pathways were in need of repair and may need to be patched (preventative measure) as was being done for roads.  Four years of funding for footpaths had been spent in 2 years so it would be necessary to re-visit the programme.

 

(h)       that it would be possible to provide a cost breakdown of the £28.3m (for 2015/16) into materials, labour and other costs.

 

(i)            that reports on road in need of repairs were categorised and prioritised, although the time then taken to respond to an issue didn’t start until it had been inspected.

 

(j)         that the Council was looking to introducing a better system to respond to customer reports regarding roads/footways and would be employing 3 additional administrative staff to answer customer queries.

 

(k)       that the County Council had looked into and decided against using PFI monies to fund capital carriageway schemes.

 

RESOLVED –

 

(1)          That Councillor Irwin and Mr Carpenter be thanked for attending the meeting and answering Members queries.

(Further requests for information had been made at points (e) and (h) above.

 

(2)       That the current position of the County Council’s Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Policy / Strategy be noted.