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ITEM EX10

EXECUTIVE – 18 MARCH 2003

HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE PROGRAMME 2003/04

Report by Assistant Director of Environmental Services (Highway Management)

Introduction

  1. This report lists the proposed expenditure on highway maintenance activities programmed for 2003/04. The budgets used for this programme are the agreed revenue budget of £14.860m for County Road Maintenance in the EN2 budget heading, and £10.0m of capital funding for structural maintenance from within the agreed transport element of the Single Capital Pot for 2003/04 (£19.9m). The capital element will remain provisional until final confirmation of the capital programme on 15 April. The programme allows for the strategic measures that are part of the Council’s 2003/04 budget, and efficiency savings of £250k have been contributed from the Highway Maintenance budget to corporate budgets.

    2. Funding Unavoidable Pressures

  2. The budget agreed by Council on 11 February requires that £1.7m of unavoidable pressures in the Environmental, Roads and Transport budget be met by using capital funding for some maintenance activities that can legitimately be charged to capital so releasing revenue money from the Highway Maintenance budget to meet these pressures. A total of £944,000 of revenue funds has been released for use in this way; the difference from the £1.7m being pressures met within the Highway Maintenance budget itself.

    3. Overview of Non-Principal Road Conditions

  3. The serious under-funding of highway maintenance in the second half of the 1990’s and the record wet winter of 2000/01 left many of our non-principal roads in a desperate state. By the end of 2001/02, a budget increase of £5.5m for these roads had enabled the very worst of these roads to be rebuilt/resurfaced and a measure of control regained on urgent repair needs. By continuing the same budget level for planned repairs in 2002/03 and increasing the minor repair (patching) budget we are now in a position where the number of failed roads has been reduced to 7 (from 29 on 1 April 2001), over a hundred other sites have been resurfaced over the last two years, and most locally important roads are in a reasonable condition.

  4. However, although the worst examples have been repaired, the total amount of repairs justified by assessment continues to be very high, roads are still fragile and vulnerable to weather damage, and we are still not repairing minor rural roads and urban estate roads other than doing urgent repairs. All this is predictable from long term monitoring of road conditions and, as reported last year, it will take sustained spending to halt and reverse this trend. But the combination of capitalising revenue spending and advancing capital spending into 2002/03 (see Transport Capital Programme Report) means that in 2003/04 spending on larger schemes on these roads will be £0.7m compared to £4.6m in 2002/03 and their maintenance will rely on patching and surface dressing treatments.

    5. Principal Roads (‘A’ Numbered Roads)

  5. The priority and investment given to principal road strengthening has improved the condition of these roads to the point that the target set in the local Transport Plan has already been achieved. This is regarded as an optimum condition level and the aim is now to keep condition at this level in the future. For 2002/03 spending on principal roads was reduced to allow spending on non-principal roads to be kept at the same level as in 2001/02. But the condition prediction model based on surveys of road strength shows that spending in future years will need to increase again to keep principal roads at the optimum condition of 6-8% of the road length requiring strengthening at any time, and to meet our other LTP target of reducing the numbers of injury accidents involving skidding on wet roads. Therefore the budget for strengthening principal roads has been increased for 2003/04 but is still £1m less than it was in 2001/02.

    6. Footway (Pavement) Conditions

  6. The budget for 2003/04 has been kept at the same level in real terms as in the past 2 years with the result that the condition rating at the programme cut off is little changed to that in 2001 and 2002. A reasonable conclusion based on the evidence and the experience of past years is that the incidence of the very worst footway conditions is being contained, but that there are still large numbers of footways whose condition justifies repair but which do not make the programme.

    7. Oxford City Centre Improvements

  7. An amount of £400k of the footway repair budget has been allocated to repaving footways in the centre of Oxford as a first step in a commitment to a joint project with Oxford City Council to improve the appearance and cleanliness of the city centre. A decision on the allocation of this money to specific schemes will be made following discussion with the City Centre Management Company and the City Council on standards and the roads to be repaired.

    8. Drainage System Maintenance

  8. There has been a big increase in the number of local flooding problems on highways due to the reduced frequency of regular cleaning over the past several years. It has been impossible to deal with all of these problems even with an increased budget. It is obvious from Area Forums, the work of the Environment Scrutiny Panel, and consultation on the Highway Management Policy Manual that this is a source of considerable public dissatisfaction. In recognition of this, the allocation to the drainage scheme programme has been increased from £180k to £300k. An increased frequency of cleaning of locations with persistent problems will be possible by increasing the gully emptying budget by £200k, but this is still insufficient to return to 2 cleaning cycles a year for all road gullies.

    9. Allocation of the Available Budget to the Programme

  9. The need to meet unavoidable budget pressures from the revenue budget, and pressures within the maintenance activities themselves, mean that it is not possible to do more than fund a few non-principal road schemes. The use of the available budget can be summarised as:

    • Principal Roads structural maintenance – return capital spending to near the level required to keep them in optimum condition.

    • Bridge strengthening – at the same level as last year to provide funds for necessary strengthening of weak bridges and ensure progress towards the targets set out in the local Transport Plan.

    • Non-principal roads assessed programme – reduced to a minimum level.

    • Drainage capital spending increased from £180k to £300k.

    • Surface Dressing is the treatment most roads will still rely on to preserve them for the future – kept at 2002/03 level.

    • Patching – a sizeable budget increase in 2002/03 to provide better quality but higher cost repairs, and to do more repair in association with surface dressing, will be retained in 2003/04.

    • Planned footway repairs – the same as 2002/03.

    • Tree maintenance increased by £100k to introduce necessary risk management inspections and arboriculture work identified from these.

    • Drainage cleaning budget increased.

    • Road condition surveys budget increased by £100k to pay for new BVPI surveys.

Oxford City Section 42 Submission and Allocation

  1. Oxford City Council have claimed their rights under Section 42 of the Highways Act to maintain the unclassified roads in Oxford. Section 42 requires the City Council to submit by 15 December an estimate of maintenance works costs for the following financial year. The County Council may approve the estimate as submitted or with modifications.

  2. The City Council have submitted their estimate as required and this is shown in Column A of Annex 2. The estimate includes the cost of repairs to all defects noted on all of the unclassified roads and is the equivalent within Oxford of the total backlog for the County as a whole. The recommended modified estimate is shown in Column B. The modified estimate carries on the basis of the figures agreed for 2002/03 adjusted by a proportionate share of any generally applicable budget changes. The modified estimates for assessed carriageway and footway schemes are the totals of schemes in Oxford City, which have been through the same rating process as all other similar schemes in the county and are included in the programme lists in the Members’ Resource Centre.

    3. Summary Tables

  3. A summary of the planned expenditure on all activities on all categories of road is shown in Annex 1. (download as .doc file)

  4. Annex 2 (download as .doc file) is Oxford City Council S.42 estimate and recommended modified estimate as explained above.

  5. Annex 3 (download as .doc file) is a summary of the standards of non-assessed maintenance activities and budgets.

  6. Lists of the individual schemes included in the programme on the basis of the ratings derived from surveys of each site have been put in the Members’ Resource Centre. Separate lists are given for principal roads, non-principal roads and footway schemes.

    7. RECOMMENDATION

  7. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. endorse the details of the 2003/04 Highway Maintenance programme as set out in Annex 1 to this report, subject to confirmation of the capital funding for structural maintenance;

          2. approve the Oxford City Council’s Section 42 estimate as modified and shown in Column B of Annex 2 to this report.

RICHARD DIX
Assistant Director Highway Management

Background papers: Oxford City Council document entitled "Highways Act 1980, Part IV , Section 42; Schedule 7 Estimate of the cost of maintenance of Highways in the City of Oxford 2003/04.

Contact Officer: Richard Dix Tel: Oxford 815663

3 March 2003

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