To receive an update from Bill Parks and Adrian Hampton on Highways in the Devizes Area.
Minutes:
Bill Parks and Adrian Hampton, the Service Heads for Local Highways, Streetscene, Parking Services and Winter/Weather & Emergencies gave a presentation to the meeting at the invitation of the Chairman.
In order to know where to undertake maintenance all Wiltshire roads were surveyed using high speed monitors attached to land rovers. Surveys on A and B roads were undertaken every year with lesser roads being surveyed every 4 years. From these surveys the roads were rated red, amber or green depending on their condition. For the Devizes area 35.3% of the road network was indicated as red or amber, meaning that these roads would need maintenance now or in the near future.
An additional £8 million had been provided to the Highways Service, which would be used to support towns and villages across the county to deliver considerable improvements. £7.3 million of this was provided by the Department for Transport and the remainder was from increased Council revenue funds.
This meant that circa £17million would now be spent on capital highway schemes. Including £500k on local highways (after contract increases and other financial challenges).
There was a 12-month programme to deliver improvements to local highway maintenance including repair of potholes, improved white lining, weed removal, kerb and pavement improvements, ditching, verges and improved road signage.
Details were given of proposed schemes for 2019/2020.
Funding on all types of operations was to increase, with nearly £20 million to be spent on big resurfacing schemes. Pothole repair funding was being increased by £500,000 from £0 and Pothole patching was increasing by £400,000. Further details could be found at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/highways-asset-management.
Wiltshire Council had again increased spending on Highway and Streetscene activities in 2019/20. They were reliant on Central Government funding. Approximately £700K was going to be cut from budget. However Wiltshire Council had replaced that funding and given extra meaning that Wiltshire Council was contributing around £1.4 million. This was good news for Streetscene.
Sparkle gangs and Sparkle Days had been introduced, as part of the Clean Up Wiltshire initiative and involved extra cleaning in an area. Towns would receive 4 Sparkle Days every quarter, where a special team – the Sparkle Gang, would come to undertake activities such as; road and path sweeping; sign washing; tidying shrubs and weed spraying. The next days in Devizes would be July 29, 30, 31, and Aug 1.
The meeting was advised to contact the Town Council, who were working in partnership with Streetscene colleagues, if they would like to request an area to be cleaned.
There had also been a major clean-up of town centres following a nearly £90,000 award from the government High Streets Community Clean-Up Fund. The funding, was used to purchase equipment for community groups with supporting services such as waste collection.
The funding gave local authorities an opportunity to do more, encourage communities to take greater pride in their local area and support campaigns such as the Keep Britain Tidy's Great British Spring Clean campaign and the National High Street Perfect Day, which was a new community-led clean-up day to help make high streets look their very best. Last year Wiltshire Council spent £2.5 million on litter collections. The volume of litter collected increases every year and the Council have to pick it up by statute. So it was very costly to the Council.
In response to a question from the audience Cllr Philip Whitehead stated that Wiltshire Council was investigating using other materials, such as recycled plastics, for resurfacing and filling pot holes. However, the technology was in it’s infancy. A trial plant in Swindon was looking at using plastics in a road resurfacing system but unfortunately only 3kg of plastic was used per tonne of material. One worry about these systems was that the plastic used would eventually break down into tiny micro plastic particles which could then get washed into river systems and enter the ecosystem. At the moment it was felt that none of the systems had undergone enough trials, or could be scaled up easily. The Council would keep looking into this and would adopt anything that was proven to work. Adrian Hampton stated that the Council were using a new fast patch machine that re-used dug up road surfaces, melting them down and resurfacing the area with them.
In response to a question regarding whether the Council collect litter on smaller roads Adrian Hampton stated that they do. However, due to budget constraints there was a limit to what they could do and therefore they were really grateful for the help of parishes and communities.
Regarding the clearing of gullies, Mr Hampton stated that approximately 20% of Wiltshire’s gullies were blocked, which equated to around 18,000 gullies. Therefore they had to prioritise blocked gullies which were causing road safety issues. The meeting was encouraged to report blocked gullies, but advised that this would result in an inspection to see if the gully was causing a safety issue. If it was not causing a road safety issue the gully would be left.
Regarding the cutting of verges it was stated that verges were cut for safety, visibility for signage, ease of access and also to help prevent Ragwort. Wiltshire Council cuts verges once a year (unless there is a safety issue), this takes place at the same time each year and it takes 6 weeks to cover the whole of Wiltshire. They were to start trialling wildflower verges, however these need a cut and collect 3 times a year.
A member of the audience stated that they were pleased that Wiltshire Council had started giving people without electric cars, who parked in Electric Vehicle parking bays, penalty tickets. It was confirmed that we do enforce on this.
In response to a question regarding overgrown hedges encroaching on footways, Mr Hampton stated that it was often the landowners responsibility to cut their hedges back. If the hedge was on private land then Wiltshire Council would be unable to cut them back. However, they could write to the land owner requesting that the hedges be cut back.
A question was asked regarding climate change issues, speculating that it may be better to spend some of the millions spent on litter collections on education with schools try to reduce issues in the future. In response it was stated that funding was allocated for awareness campaigns and partnership working with schools.
The Chairman thanked Mr Hampton and Mr Parks.