To receive presentations from the Highways Department and the Local Highways and Streetscene Team regarding the new contractual and operational arrangements.
In attendance will be; Councillor John Thomson, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Highways, Streetscene and Broadband, Parvis Khansari, Service Director for Strategic Services, Highways & Passenger Transport and Tim Woolford, Local Highways and Streetscene Services South.
There will be an opportunity to ask questions to these key people, responsible for the maintenance of highways, green spaces and Streetscene within our community area.
Minutes:
The Chairman welcomed Parvis Khansari, Service Director for Strategic Services, Highways and Transport.
Parvis gave a presentation which included information on Wiltshire’s Highways assets and statistics which showed the condition of A, B and C Roads and distance of roads treated over the last five years, within each community area.
Data on the condition of the road is collected in several ways, these include:
100% B roads per annum in one direction
50% C roads per annum in one direction
(*Sideways-force Coefficient Routine Inspection Machine, ** Coarse Visual Inspection)
Much of the maintenance is data driven; Southern Wiltshire’s A roads were rated at a medium level of need of attention. The current road maintenance expenditure for Wiltshire was £14 million. In Southern Wiltshire there are 255kms of roads which equates to 5% of the total network across Wiltshire.
The Board then received a presentation from Tim Woolford, Area Manager South for Highways and Streetscene, and Adrian Hampton, Head of Local Highways and Streetscene South, detailing the recent contractual changes from Ringway to Balfour Beatty which were implemented on 1 June 2013.
The new contract had reduced service providers to just one. The new team would continue to provide all of the old services available but would deliver them in a more community focused way.
Each Community Area across Wiltshire has a community team; this consists of one Community Coordinator and an Engineer per two coordinators. In Southern Wiltshire the Coordinator is Bob Crean and the Engineer for Southern Wiltshire and Salisbury is Graham Axtell, both officers are based at the Wilton depot.
Town and parish councils are able to contact their Community Coordinator directly, members of the public can report all services to the Clarence number 0800 23 23 23.
Comments and questions were then taken, these included:
Cllr Thomson added that an Officer had been appointed to monitor the new contract. The Council are very active to improve services provided under this contract, when the grass cutting fell behind schedule, Cabinet met to resolve the situation. The numbers of grass cutters then increased from 75 to 100.
A new app for smart phones had been launched and was available to download from the Wiltshire website. The app enables users to report highways maintenance.
· Cllr Johnson asked why local councillors were no longer receiving the schedule for the year ahead, as he felt it was useful when advising residents within his ward of planned maintenance? Answer: The Highways programme document was now available online.
· How was the Clarence number promoted? Answer: All phone books and libraries have the number; if people call Wiltshire council the operators will put them through to Clarence.
The Chairman urged anyone involved with parish magazines to also promote the number.
Road repairs carried out by utility companies following excavation remain their responsibility for 18 months thereafter. Cllr Thomson urged parish councils to keep a note of the date of any utilities works, and to report any refills in a poor condition to the council so that the contractors may be contacted to make the repairs.
A copy of the presentation can be viewed online at:
www.wiltshire.gov.uk/southernwiltshireareaboard