Agenda item

Report ES17004

Members considered future programmes of planned carriageway and footway maintenance. This followed the Council decision (12^th December 2016) to invest capital funding (£11.8m) on planned highway maintenance, allowing the condition of non-principal and unclassified roads and footways in the borough to be improved so reducing the demand for reactive maintenance. Annual revenue savings of £2.5m would be made - a total of £12.5m over five years from 2017/18 - which would be partly offset by an estimated reduction of £167k in treasury management income over the period.

Details were provided of carriageways and footways considered the highest maintenance priority as a first phase of the investment programme, the estimated cost of the works being £2.6m for carriageways and £0.9m for footways. Future phases of schemes would be submitted for approval during the spring of 2017. 

TfL had recently confirmed 2017/18 funding of £880k for principal road maintenance in the borough and details were provided of proposed maintenance t using the funds.

Portfolio Holder endorsement was also sought for a bid on structural projects related to bridge assessment and strengthening over the next three years; a bid for structural projects would then be submitted to the London Bridges Engineering Group (LoBEG), advising TfL on scheme prioritisation.

Additionally, information circulated at the meeting showed (i) the comparative whole life costs of road surfacing materials and (ii) comments from six Members on the planned programmes of carriageway and footway works. Requests for maintenance of roads not listed on the first phase of the investment programme would be included in the second phase and as such there were no further updates to roads listed in the first phase.

For principal road maintenance, the Chairman suggested that part of Sevenoaks Road between Park Avenue and Charterhouse Road be considered for maintenance work. Cllr Ellie Harmer also enquired of the reason for the bridge along Lansdowne Road in the Sundridge Park area being closed to traffic; accordingly, it was agreed that officers would look into the matter and provide an explanation to Cllr Harmer.

On footway maintenance, it was confirmed that paving slabs are installed as close as possible to trees and measures would be taken to stem tree roots as much as possible.

To help survey road surface condition reference was made to a scanning device fitted to the underside of refuse vehicles. The approach was currently being trialled by Thurrock Council funded by the Department for Transport. A Member considered this an interesting development and suggested that officers monitor the trial outcomes - a similar road surface scan was already undertaken annually in the borough.

From initial discussions by the Committee’s Highways Maintenance Working Group (listed in Report ES17004), the Chairman highlighted a priority focus on carriageway schemes based upon a likely 70/30 split between carriageways and footways. In view of a carriageway focus, the Chairman suggested reactive maintenance on footways damaged by tree roots - the roots would continue to grow and early investment would not be worthwhile.

In concluding the item, Members agreed to support the recommendations to the Portfolio Holder and to also recommend that the Working Group’s initial discussions listed at paragraph 3.4 to Report ES17004 be added as recommendations to the Portfolio Holder.

RESOLVED that the Environment Portfolio Holder be recommended to:

(1)  agree the schemes listed at Appendix A to Report ES17004 for the first phase of the Council’s investment programme of planned highway maintenance for 2017/19;

(2)  agree the proposed TfL funded programme of principal road maintenance works for 2017/18, as set out at Appendix B to Report ES17004, together with the bid to Transport for London for bridge strengthening and assessment at Appendix C to the report; and

(3)  agree that the summary of initial discussions from the Highway Maintenance Working Group (listed at paragraph 3.4 to Report ES17004) be regarded as recommendations and taken forward by the Portfolio Holder as additional decisions on highways investment, namely that  –

·  priorities for capital expenditure focus on carriageway schemes to reduce the requirement for future reactive maintenance, with a likely split of 70/30 carriageways / footways;

·  although maintenance hierarchy will be considered when selecting footway and carriageway maintenance schemes, works in lower category roads would be considered where major defects are present;

·  carriageway projects are to include proprietary treatments such as surface dressing in rural roads;

·  future footway maintenance schemes and material selection are to deal with known issues of damage from tree roots and over-running vehicles, with works directed at areas of damaged footways rather than whole footway maintenance schemes.