Agenda item

In attendance for this item were:

Paul Smith, Assistant Director for Highways and Transport Operations

Elliot Pritchard, Highway Maintenance Operations Manager

 

The Assistant Director for Highways and Transport Operations introduced the presentation and clarified that highways operations included a vast number of functions and the report and slides addressed specific aspects (carriageways, footways and public rights of way, plus an update on drainage system cyclical technology to improve reporting) which had been requested by the Panel.

 

The Chairman referred to one of the public participant’s questions about sustainability measures in highway maintenance and the Officers agreed that it would be important to include sustainability work in future updates to the Panel, which were numerous, for example the Council’s contract with Ringway for highway maintenance included a key performance indicator for recycling with very good performance attained.

 

The Panel was aware that as part of the Council’s 2021/22 budget, agreed in February 2021, there was additional expenditure available for carriageways (£6m), footways (£4m) and public rights of way (£500,000), and an initial update on plans had there been requested.

 

Carriageways

The Highway Maintenance Operations Manager explained that the additional £12m funding had been split equally over two years (2020/21 and 2021/22), which with the addition of Department for Transport (DfT) funding for 2020/21 of £14.4m, meant the combined funds for improvements was £20.4m.

 

The Panel was shown how this funding compared with previous years, and the Directorate’s current Strategy and Annual Programme. The Council strived for its road condition to be in the upper quartile of condition A, B, C and U roads measured with the national average of road condition. In order to get the best value from structural maintenance funding, schemes were prioritised using factors including road condition and defect data, engineer site assessments and cost/benefit analysis. It was clarified that the additional funding was for maintaining existing roads, not new schemes.

 

Discussion points

·         The point was made that the additional funding was a fabulous investment which would further enhance the condition of the county’s roads and footways and would encourage walking and cycling which had greatly increased during the past year.

·         There were 4,112 km of roads in Worcestershire -  the Officer agreed to provide the number of carriageways in each of the categories A, B, C and U roads and the spend required to keep them in the upper quartile.

·         It was explained that the Directorate had carried out an approximation as to where the condition of the county’s roads needed to be in order to reach a higher quartile, based on the previous year’s results.

 

Footways

£8m additional funding had been made available to improve Worcestershire’s footways asset, split equally over 2020/21 and 2021/22. DfT funding for 2020/21 was £2.4m. £1.8m of this fund would be utilised for structural renewals, and the remainder utilised for other footway treatments. There had been no addition to the New Members Highways Fund, and to date around £1.5m of the £2.5m fund had been spent on renewal schemes.

 

The 3,400km total length of the footway network was categorised as either main shopping areas, busy urban, less used/quite urban or busy rural.

 

The Directorate obtained information about footways from a variety of sources. Recent asset trend analysis showed steady improvement for all footway categories, and funding was prioritised and allocated based on information and modelling scenarios provided by the asset Management Team, footway defects, third party claims information and onsite engineering assessments.

 

The funding allocated for 2021/22 was expected to be around £7.3m, however this may increase if additional footways were funded through the New Members Fund, and all members were encouraged to inform the Directorate as soon as possible. The core budget allocation had already been agreed and passed to Ringway to programme for next year.

 

Members had been sent a list of proposed schemes for their division and a good deal had already replied and agreed with the proposals, therefore sufficient schemes had been passed to Ringway to allow them to programme up to November. It was likely that the annual programme would require 10-12 gangs throughout the year to deliver the full budget allocation.

 

Discussion points

·         Panel members highlighted the importance of footways (which were also cycleways) and also public rights of way to members of the public, therefore the additional funding was very much welcomed.

·         A member pointed out that the increased activity would generate more requests to councillors for footpaths maintenance, and asked how requests would be assessed and managed, including use of the members Fund, and the Officers explained that the new councillor case management system should help, and that factors considered included scanner data, usage and vulnerable users.

·         Regarding issues with hedges overhanging pavements, Officers were engaged in work to encourage householders to take responsibility for these, however this was part of separate funding.

·         In terms of determining ownership of assets, it was explained that to all intents and purposes, footways and pavements were the same thing, however a public right of way was very different and may not be the Council’s responsibility to maintain and was therefore more complicated.

·         When asked whether the Council could have the same targets for the condition of footways compared to other areas, as it did for carriageways, it was explained that footways were not scanned in the same way, although the Council was improving footways more than many neighbouring local authorities.

·         Cllr Morris asked how he could increase the focus on maintenance of housing estate footways (Westlands and Chawson), since while the Highways Engineer had been very helpful and the members allowance was appreciated, it would not be at all sufficient – the Operations Manager would look into this.

·         The Chairman referred to the Panel’s emphasis on transparency and suggested a footway tracker would be helpful in keeping members better informed about how footways in their area were prioritised.

 

Public Rights of Way (PRoW)

The Assistant Director for Highways and Transport Operations explained that the additional funding allocation of £500k capital and £100k revenue would make a big difference to PRoW, of which there were 4,600km, therefore a significant asset. PRoW usage over the past 12 months had doubled, and there were synergies with health and wellbeing and active travel.

 

A project group had been established to ensure that additional works were carried out effectively within budget and member approval, ensuring that value was added. Funding would be deployed across a variety of schemes including traditional works (gates, styles, footpaths, signage), structures (bridges), enhancement of well used paths and a mix of urban and rural rights of way to ensure accessibility.

 

Discussion points:

·         The practice of labelling repairs with signage to indicate work had been carried out by the Council and contact details was very effective way of enabling the public to inform, and should be widened – a further suggestion by the Chairman to include QR codes and promote volunteering was also agreed to be a very good idea.

·         Panel members were excited about by the enhancement plans since PRoW were so well used and contributed to the population’s health. Officers agreed to follow up with Public Health Colleagues regarding any potential to leverage against any grants to build on the increased usage.

·         The Chairman suggested it would be helpful to add a map of existing volunteer groups to the Council’s webpage, and pointed out that volunteers were often key in resolving issues as they knew landowners.

 

The Assistant Director pointed out that PRoW were a mix of urban and rural, and also advised that the additional funds meant an enforcement officer would be added to the PRoW team.

 

Cyclical Drainage

The Panel was updated on gully cleaning, mapping systems, the GIS system and next steps. There were around 104,000 gullies on the Worcestershire highways network, as well as around 10,000 additional drainage assets.

 

During 2019/20 significant resources were deployed to cleanse drainage assets and improve asset data recording and reporting. During the past few months Ringway had utilised resources to analyse new data to produce a revamped cleansing schedule with all drainage assets prioritised, based on recent and historic data, which determined cleansing frequency.

 

Each gully had a unique ID reference and had been plotted on the Council’s GIS mapping system. Through GIS each gully could be interrogated to determine its ID reference, cleaning frequency, date last attended and known issues.

 

The online mapping system was in the final stages of development, which was split into two parts (ensuring data was accurate and fit for purpose and ensuring the system was compatible with the existing County Council website ‘report it’ function). Work was progressing well and demonstration of the system would take place that month, after which a trial period would start, with a limited number of users before the platform was launched.

 

The Panel was shown a snapshot of the Council’s GIS platform, which the new online mapping system would resemble, in a more user-friendly form, and with functions to indicate where issues had already been reported.

 

Regarding next steps, additional funding would be used to resource repairs of many of the defects identified during recent gully emptying. The new asset data system provided sophisticated reporting functions that allowed Officers to identify and cluster similar defects into work streams. In preparation for the next financial year, works programmes were in development to ensure commencement in April. Whilst progress was still needed, it was envisaged that there would be three additional crews the following year as well as an additional jetting resource.

 

Discussion points:

·         The system for determining cleaning frequency of a gully was not an exact science since it depended on a range of factors.

·         It was confirmed that all gullies had a unique ID.

·         The Council’s Officers liaised regularly with district council colleagues to ensure work was joined up and any issues discussed.

·         The Chairman was really excited by the progress made on the new system, which would be a real asset in reporting issues and members highlighted the impact that drainage problems had on people’s lives.

·         The Chairman cautioned against spending time developing a public facing system in addition to the one used by staff, since the existing one would be accessible to everyone and there was a great deal of local expertise.

 

The Chairman requested a demonstration of the new online system for the Panel, and Panel members thanked the Officers present for all their work and progress during this Council term.

 

The following action / information was requested:

 

  Carriageways

·         Information about the number of carriageways in each of the categories A, B, C and U roads and spend required to keep them in the upper quartile when this was set at the start of the year

 

PROW

·         encourage use of signage on styles and gateways etc to promote the council’s work, volunteer groups and also the QR code to enable reporting

·         Investigate the possibility of use of public health grants to facilitate PROW work because of the health and exercise benefits to the public and recent increased use

 

Cyclical Drainage –  Demonstration of GIS platform new system to the Panel.