Agenda item

Further to a request at the 7 March meeting, Bill Parks (Head of Service, Local Highways and Streetscene (Central)) will give an overview of Wiltshire Council’s strategy for resurfacing and emergency repairs.

 The Chairman commented that this item had been requested at the Area Board meeting in March, and invited Bill Parks, (Head of Service, Local Highways and Streetscene (Central)) to give a presentation on the Council’s strategy for resurfacing and emergency repairs.

Bill commented that there were 4463km of roads within Wiltshire, with 297km in the Pewsey Community Area.  As the relevant highways authority, Wiltshire Council had a legal responsibility to maintain the highway to a “reasonable” standard, and the County budget approximated to £4.8 million for routine maintenance (i.e. pot holes, surface patching, drainage cleaning etc), and £11.7 million for structural maintenance, such as resurfacing.

In terms of routine maintenance, defects were prioritised based on the size of the defect, and the classification of the road, with A-roads, B-roads and some C-roads being classified as “group 1”.  For example, a pothole of 75mm depth and width of up to 300mm on a group 1 road, would classify as a priority 1 repair, and would be addressed within 24 hours of notification.  To date 5111 road defects had been addressed across Wiltshire, 528 of which had been within the Pewsey Community Area. 

In relation to structural maintenance, a number of survey methods were used to inform the resurfacing schedule including:

• SCRIM survey – The whole group 1 network (A, B and some C roads) was surveyed each year with this system, to measure the skidding properties of the road surface.
• Deflectograph survey – This measured the structural strength of the carriageway, and approximately 20% of A roads were surveyed each year.
• Scanner Survey – This measured surface characteristics of the carriageway such as cracking, texture and ride quality.
• Coarse Visual Inspector (CVI) Survey – This recorded surface deterioration including fretting, potholes, and failed patching.

Information packs were available showing the work undertaken over the previous four years in each community area, and work planned for the future.  These could be viewed via the following link:
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/parkingtransportandstreets/roadshighwayspavements/areaboardhighwayinformation.htm

The Chairman thanked Bill for the presentation and invited questions and comments:

• Responding to a question, Bill clarified that the £4.8 million spent on routine maintenance did not just consist of potholes and road surface maintenance, but also grass cutting, parish stewards etc.

• The Council had received an additional £2 million from the government towards highway damage resulting from the severe winter; this had been spent on minor repairs.

• It was requested that performance figures be shown at future presentations, to indicate how quickly reported defects were addressed, and to show benchmarking against other,  similar authorities.  Bill reported that some such performance figures were shown in the information pack published on the website (see link above).

• In response to a question regarding national cycle routes, it was noted that these were not prioritised over other roads in terms of repair work. 

• Bill clarified that most surface repairs were designed to last until the surface was replaced.  However, it was also noted that some repairs would require an interim fix, to make the carriageway safe, while a long-term repair was designed and added to the work programme.