Agenda item

To receive a presentation from a Highways Officer in regard to the Highways 5-year Work Plan.

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:

• The link up between the Highways department and other utility services was questioned, with roads being dug up to lay new pipes, often with lettering on roads not fully repainted. Diane stated that the Network Management team has inspectors for such work and additionally, she is able to place a Section 58 protection on recently worked on roads top protect them from utility work. It was however acknowledged that utilities can work on these roads in an emergency situation.
• Regarding utility services, it was clarified that they have a responsibility of working to a reinstate specification and if roads sink following their work then this should be raised through the Highways app, so that the network management team can check with the utility company.
• The prioritisation of repair work to pavements was questioned, to which Diane clarified that local highway engineers have been allocated a budget for pavements in order to directly deal with repairs.
• It was questioned what the guidance is for potholes and how to increase bike awareness. Diane noted that anyone who sees a pothole should raise this as an app so that these can be identified before they get worse.
• It was questioned whether polishing the surface of roads reduces the skid resistance. Diane clarified that the aggregate used is designed to re-roughen once it has been reduced to the layer below due to micro-crystals.

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.