Prioritisation of highway maintenance needs

"I think my road needs resurfacing. When are you going to do it?"

"Why are you repairing that road and not mine? I think mine needs doing too."

Our roads and footways need periodic maintenance to keep them in a usable condition. As the responsible authority for maintaining highways, we carry out planned road-works at various locations throughout the county each year, to arrest deterioration and improve the useful life of the infrastructure. Each year we implement about 800 programmed maintenance schemes, costing approximately £20 million. All planned road-works we carry-out – when and where – result from an organised system of highway inspections and prioritisation of maintenance needs. There are several different maintenance techniques used, depending on particular needs.

The road and footway network is organised into a hierarchy, in which each road and footway is categorised according to its level of use and importance. All roads and footways are inspected and assessed regularly, for the purpose of identifying maintenance needs to keep them in good repair and to deal with any hazards that might exist.  The inspections are undertaken at frequencies dependent on the category of each road or footway. The inspection frequencies are designed to allow for deterioration due to normal wear-and-tear to be identified in good time. Additional inspections are carried-out in response to a report of a problem.

Many defects are un-noticeable without a close look but are potentially detrimental to long-term structural integrity. Recording of these defects helps to identify needs for planned maintenance works and leads to formulation of proposed maintenance schemes. All such potential schemes county-wide are formally prioritised using a consistent rating system. They are then held on a rolling programme of potential schemes listed in order of their rating. Each year when the funding for the coming year is announced, the schemes with the highest ratings whose collective cost estimates match the available funding are transferred from the rolling programme to the planned annual works programme for the coming year. They are then carried out in that year.

Those schemes that are not included in the planned annual works programme remain on the rolling programme. If subsequent inspections reveal defects comprising a scheme on the rolling programme to have deteriorated, the scheme may be re-rated and its position on the rolling programme may change according to its new rating. Budgetary constraints dictate that schemes carried out each year are typically a minority of the total number of potential schemes on the rolling programme. However, the formal system of rating ensures the funding is used consistently and fairly county-wide, by directing it at the sites that have the greatest need.

The process described above relates to defects that are considered to be potentially detrimental to the long-term integrity of the infrastructure. If a defect that could cause an immediate hazard to users is identified, the necessary remedial work is carried out promptly as part of day-to-day general repairs activities.