Agenda item

To receive a presentation from Diane Ware, Principal Technical Officer, Highways.

To consider the report on Highways Schemes for the forthcoming year.

Diane Ware, Principal Technical Officer, Highways gave a presentation on the proposed Highways Schemes for 2019/2020.

The officer introduced herself and stated that she was involved in planning all major highways schemes. She was often out and about visiting areas and people so if you had a highways issue please feel free to contact her. Her contact details were:

Diane Ware, Principal Technical Officer, Highways

Telephone 01225 – 713298

Mobile – 07423 549984

Email: diane.ware@wiltshire.gov.uk

Wiltshire’s roads were in not too bad a condition in comparison to other places. Roads in the Amesbury community area ranked 7^th out of all 18 area boards on a worst to best scale.

Previously, when working out the 5 year plan and how much money to allocate each area they used the amount of road network in each area to calculate the budget. However, it had now been decided to allocate spend by need, so areas with the worst roads would get more money.

Over the next 5 years the budget would vary quite considerably, for example in 2019/2020 Amesbury was allocated nearly £940,000, then in 2020/2021 this would drop to £465,000, going up again the year after. Allocating the money in this way meant that big jobs could get done properly.

Approximately 35% of Amesbury’s roads were rated red and amber. However they did not yet have full network coverage on the state of the roads, with some roads still to be assessed. There were 2 specialist land rovers driving the network with lasers and cameras to assess the state of the roads. They could also use the help of the public. If aware of potholes or an urgent issue that needed fixing then please report it on the My Wiltshire website or App, for other issues, contact Diane herself.

Slides were shown of some of the proposed schemes for Amesbury, these could also be found in the agenda pack.

The Chair of Tilshead Parish Council queried why they kept getting told that some works that needed doing in their area would be on the plan for next year, but then kept being put back. The officer responded that the stretch of road he was referring to would have reactive patching this year to make it safe and was then in the plan for next year.

In response to questions regarding the different types of surfacing it was stated that micro-asphalt was a very thin type of surface dressing. Surfacing was different and involved scraping the road surface back and then resurfacing it.

In response to queries regarding other roads members of the audience wanted improving, the officer stated that this was Amesbury’s list. If there was a particular stretch of road that people really wanted to be worked on, then Highways could do that, however, there was only a finite amount of money so it would need to be swapped for one of the others on the list. The roads on the list had been graded by need, undertaking the worst ones first.

The money allocated was ring fenced for 5 years. Shrewton High Street would be getting £350,000 from Stonehenge. A million pounds had been allocated for footways in Wiltshire. Road markings, white lines, etcetera, came from a different budget and additional money was being allocated to this. If you knew of white lines that needed re-painting, let your local highways engineer know. There was quite a bit of money in the reactive patching pot to fix pot holes and urgent surface issues that occurred.

Wiltshire Council had some velocity patching machines, these were in situ recycling machines, which recycled the old road surface and with the addition of an additive, the old road surface could be reused to patch the road. Machines which used recycled plastic to fill pot holes were also being investigated, with a scrutiny report being produced. It was not yet clear whether this was viable as work was ongoing.

It was suggested by Cllr Wright that perhaps road signs informing people of works could be re-worded. Sometimes the work undertaken was just patching not resurfacing. As the signs did not explain this people could get frustrated when a section of road was worked on twice. A possible suggestion was ‘patching prior to resurfacing’. The officer stated they would be happy to reword signs.

The officer also stated that even though CATG meetings were not to consider substantive schemes she would be happy to attend some CATG meetings to discuss the area’s needs.

The board thanked Diane for her presentation and hard work. After discussion, the consensus was that Diane was an expert in her field and her recommendations on which roads needed work most urgently should be followed.

The board considered the recommendations in the report and it was;

Resolved

To:

(i) Note the road surfacing work and repairs carried out in 2018/19 and note the improvement in the overall condition of Wiltshire’s roads in recent years, but acknowledge that further investment is still required.

(ii) Approves the highway maintenance scheme list for 2019/20 prepared for the Area Board.

(iii) Note the new provisional five year programme, which will reviewed annually to ensure best value for money and whole life costing for the highways asset.

Note: In point (i) the wording of the proposal had been changed from  “Welcome the road surfacing work …” to “Note the road surfacing work …”.