Issue - meetings

Report ES16006

Report ES16006 recommended planned footway and carriageway works for the remainder of 2015/16 and 2016/17 with a draft programme for future years. Information was also provided on carriageway treatment options and projects related to the Council’s annual bid to the London Bridges Engineering Group (advising Transport for London) for structural projects on bridge assessment and strengthening.

Technical surveys provide carriageway condition data borough-wide for an assessment of network condition. Although not precise, being derived from a wide range of identified highway defects, the surveys provide valuable trend data, identifying the percentage of carriageway likely to require maintenance. Prioritisation in accordance with budget provision is based upon highway condition with account also taken of factors such as amount of use, location on the network, adjacent services, frequency of reactive maintenance, level of public enquiries, and consultation responses.

Supplementary information tabled for the meeting highlighted Ward Councillors who had provided comments/enquiries on the proposed programme, the information also listing roads noted in respect of the Member enquiries and the date of response sent by officers to each Member. 

A number of comments and questions were raised in discussion with further background provided on formulating the programme. Following the technical surveys of network condition by external surveyors (to help develop the programme), Council engineers would carry out their own assessment of each road considered and be certain of the necessary treatment before work is commenced. As such the programme was not intended to reflect the physical condition of roads listed and subsequent tests would identify anything wrong underneath the road surface. An undulating road surface would not of itself warrant inclusion within the programme; where it was possible to accept road undulations for a few years, attention could be given to dealing with severely rutted roads and roads requiring a high number of reactive maintenance visits. Only the part of a road requiring works would be treated as previously agreed by the Highway Assets Working Group. This helped to provide the most cost effective rates. 

Detailed work on the programme would therefore follow the Portfolio Holder’s decision with any changes to the programme (in line with service needs) being delegated to the Executive Director in consultation with the Portfolio Holder. The length of footways to be treated would be re-affirmed on site. Members were invited to accompany engineers in visiting some roads which the Portfolio Holder supported.

In the Orpington ward it was highlighted that a number of pavements on hills were now uneven, posing a risk, particularly for the elderly. The Chairman suggested that there could be value in an assessment of footway treatment options, in a similar approach to the carriageway treatment options detailed in the report. The Chairman proposed that the Portfolio Holder could then give further consideration to the footway re-surfacing schemes appended to Report ES16006. The schemes could be agreed in principle at this stage and the footway programme commenced with the first tranche of works, subject to Members looking further at remaining footways either  ...  view the full minutes text for item 97