Agenda item

A Highways Officer will be in attendance to present the report, which the Board is asked to consider and approve the following recommendations:

The Area Board is asked to:

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

(ii)          Approve 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.

Parvis Khansari, Director for Highways & Transport presented information on the proposed works in 2019/20 in the Salisbury area, as detailed in the agenda pack.

Highways funding had previously been divided out across the 18 Community Areas by road mileage, this year it had been allocated on the basis of condition of roads.

The presentation detailed road conditions on A, B and C roads within Salisbury. The roads were assessed for works by the survey vehicle which produced data and maps.

There were planned works of around £400k worth of repairs in Salisbury for this year.

Parvis added that if people knew of areas that they felt had been missed, to let them know, so that the Highways Officers could take a look and feedback.

It was not just traffic that did the damage but also the weather, we had had to put an additional £1m in to the budget for weather damage last summer.

Highways also had an additional £6m from central Government towards roads.

Questions and comments included:

Are we getting value for money, as pothole patching was not good value? The length of time that new tarmac was lasting seemed to be less than it used to? Answer: We are doing a lot of things to make sure we are getting value for money. Nationally we are putting in a fraction of funding needed to look after roads properly. Looking back, the schemes that were rolled out lasted, however nowadays the responsibility is the same but we have to come up with ways to keep the roads safe with less money. We should move to planned maintenance, but we need budgets to do that.

With the extra funding for works. everyone should download the ‘My Wiltshire’ App to report everything they see. Who decides the priority lists, as in some areas where there are many elderly people, those roads were down far on the list. Answer: Local knowledge, and experience of engineers and last stage it comes here for comments from the Area Board.

Milford Mill Bridge has been quite badly damaged, and there was a huge amount of interest to look at this. Answer: We have put a statement out. That is a 14C bridge, there is a stone at the end of the parapet which often gets hit, however, it is designed to move when hit. We are aware of it and we look after it, it is a grade 1 listed bridge. There is a lot of signage in place to advise road users.

Nice to see some residential streets being resurfaced at last. The wear on the tarmac, in Norfolk road was done 4 years ago and it is already collapsing in the middle. When planning the works, are the service providers considered, as BT openworld will be coming along to put fibre optic through Salisbury. We see areas where the services come along after a road has been done and dig it up. Please look at the junction of Exeter Street, it is quite dangerous. With regards to delamination, there were two roads in Harnham, Ravens Croft and my own road, which both need looking at. You also need to look at the roads that had the spray tarmac. These Highways Schedule Reports previously came to us earlier in January. Could next years come earlier in Nov – Jan?

In Endless Street why do we still see tyre tracks on the newly laid tarmac on the road, it’s the construction people, its grey and does not look attractive. Answer: It is a new system we are trialling in a few places, and is supposed to be good for areas we have a lot of bus traffic, it was supposed to be kept clear for 24 hours after it was laid, but it wasn’t.

The road from A345 Beehive to Amesbury work was carried out and it was closed. What is alarming was the 10 yards of old tarmac in patches, the new layer is not continuous.

Hope the centre of Salisbury will look better than it does now, would the work extend to the pathways as well? There seems to be a lot of tarmac going down on the footways which does not seem suitable in our medieval city. Answer:  The Board worked with us a few years ago to identify which footpaths needed to be done. There was not a separate budget for footpaths, at that time there  was an injection of funds which we were able to direct to footpaths which had been prioritised by the Board.

The Board considered the recommendations in the report.

Decision

The Salisbury Area Board agreed to:

1.    Welcome the road surfacing work and repairs carried out in 2018/19 and notes the improvement in the overall condition

of Wiltshire’s roads in recent years, but acknowledges that

further investment was still required.

2.    Approve the highway maintenance scheme list for 2019/20

prepared for the Area Board.

3.    Note the new provisional five-year programme, which would  be reviewed annually to ensure best value for moneyand whole life costing for the highways asset.

For Highways queries, please contact Diane Ware - Principal Technical Officer Highways

Telephone 01225 – 713298

Mobile – 07423 549984

email diane.ware@wiltshire.gov.uk