To receive a presentation from a Highways Officer in regard to the Highways 5-year Work Plan.
Minutes:
The Area Board received a presentation regarding the Highways 5-year Work Plan from Highways Principal Technical Officer, Diane Ware. The presentation covered the following points:
· Diane provided her email address (diane.ware@wiltshire.gov.uk) for if any attendees wanted to get in touch with her regarding the current proposed plan. It was stated that this is the first revision and pre-plan to inform what the Council is thinking of doing over the next 5 years. The plan will be authorised in April.
· Previously funds had been allocated based upon the length of the roads in question, however there was a discrepancy with this with traffic flows and geology not being the same for all. Therefore, over the next 5 years funding will be allocating to roads dependent on condition as with the need to be Carbon neutral by 2023, roads cannot be left to need a full reconstruction.
· Diane Ware outlined some of the preventative treatments that are used on roads, in order to make carbon savings and ultimately prevent road surfaces from needing major intervention work.
· Last year the whole road network was covered by a laser machine, which means that each road has a score which can be looked up and prioritised to be worked on.
· A graph was provided to show that currently on average 31.90% of Wiltshire’s A,B,C roads need work; Chippenham’s roads were scored 30.22%.
· It was also acknowledged that the budget for this work has been cut by million pounds, therefore cuts have been made.
· The proposed spend level for Chippenham was outlined as being 4.46 million pounds over a 5-year period, with the average spend for othercommunity areas being 3.3 million pounds.
Following the presentation there was time for the following questions and points to be raised:
Resolved:
The Area Board agreed to note the contents of the presentation and the report provided by Highways. Additionally it was agreed that the report included in the agenda pack would be taken to the Chippenham and Villages Community Area Transport Group (CATG) for further comment before returning back to the Area Board next year for approval.
Supporting documents: