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ITEM EX19

EXECUTIVE – 19 MARCH 2002

HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE PROGRAMME 2002/03

Report by Director of Environmental Services

1. This report lists the proposed expenditure on highway maintenance activities programmed for 2002/03. The budgets used for this programme are the agreed revenue budget of £16.512m for County Road Maintenance in the EN2 budget heading, and the £10.6m of capital funding for structural maintenance from within the agreed transport element of the Single Capital Pot for 2002/03 (£18.613m). The programme allows for the strategic measures that are part of the Council’s 2002/03 budget.

Funding Unavoidable Pressures

2. The report on the 2002/03 Environmental Budget considered by the Environment Scrutiny Committee on 5 December 2001 highlighted that £1.2m of unavoidable pressures would have to be met from the Highway Maintenance budget if no provision was made. The budget agreed by Council requires these pressures to 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 unavoidable pressures. A total of £926,000 of revenue funds has been released for use in this way; the difference from the £1.2m being pressures within the Highway Maintenance budget itself.

Overview of Road Conditions

3. At this time last year many of the County’s roads were in a desperate state as a result of seven years of serious underfunding and the very damaging effects of 2001/02 winter; one of the wettest on record. The £5.5m budget increase put into the ‘secondary roads recovery programme’ in 2001/02 has enabled the very worst roads to be rebuilt or resurfaced and a measure of control to be regained on urgent repair needs. This has reduced the number of the most visible defects but the backlog of repairs, as measured by justified schemes that cannot be programmed, has increased from 484 to 816. This is as predicted from the evidence of the long term monitoring of road conditions; it will take sustained spending to halt and reverse this trend.

‘Failed’ Roads

4. There were 29 ‘failed’ roads on 1 April 2001, 9 were rebuilt or resurfaced during the year – together with part of one other. In 2002/03 the part-repaired road will be completed and repairs to another 7 are programmed; these are those judged as highest priority by the Area Engineers on the basis of condition and local importance. This will leave 12 not programmed. However making large scale repairs to these is not a sensible, value for money option because it sinks a lot of scarce money into what are often very minor roads. We will look to deal with these as best we can by cheaper means such as patching up the worst bits and surface dressing.

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 can be 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 return to around the 2001/02 level of £3.5m to keep principal roads at the optimum condition of 6% 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.

Footway Condition

6. The budget for planned footway repairs was increased by £900k in 2001/02, bringing spending near to the highest past level briefly achieved in 1990/91. Judged solely by the condition rating of footway schemes at the programme cut-off level, this level of spending appears to have resulted in conditions similar to those in 1990/91. But the rating calculation has been amended in a number of ways in the last 10 years so exact comparison is not possible, and this measure ignores the long term trend of an increasing backlog of justified schemes.
7. The budget for 2002/03 has been kept at the same level in real terms with the result that the condition rating at the programme cut off is little changed to 2001/02 as is the number of schemes in the programme. 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 is a growth in numbers of footways whose condition justifies repair but which do not make the programme. A more reliable assessment should be possible next year after two years of spending at this level.

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 few years. It has been impossible to deal with all of these problems even within the increased budget. The worst problems where flooding is affecting private property are being addressed by the drainage scheme programme reintroduced last year and retained at the same funding level for 2002/03. An increased frequency of cleaning would be desirable but the best that can be managed in 2002/03 is a small increase of £59,000 to help deal with specific problems and avoid disruption.

Allocation of the Available Budget to the Programme

9. The proposed programme is set out at Annex 1. In essence the plan is to spend as much as possible on the non-principal roads in a way that maximises the impact on numbers of potholes and failed roads. This can be summarised as follows:-

• Principal Roads structural maintenance – limit capital spending in 2002/03 in order to provide funds for non-principal roads.
• Bridge strengthening – at the same level as last year to provide funds for necessary strengthening of weak bridges over railways.
• Non-principal roads assessed programme – at same level as 2001/02 with deliberate emphasis on programming as many schemes in built up areas as possible.
• Surface Dressing is the treatment most roads will still rely on to preserve them for the future – a small increase but offset by rising contract prices.
• Patching – a sizeable increase of 21% on 2001/02 to provide better quality but higher cost repairs, and to do more repair in association with surface dressing. Redistributed rates in the term maintenance contract will result in a lower patching cost and thus an increase in the volume of work greater than the budget increase.
• Planned footway repairs – the same as 2001/02.
• Routine, Cyclic, Electrical, and Winter Maintenance – adjusted for demography increases where appropriate but otherwise the same as 2001/02 except for the small increase in drainage cleaning mentioned above.

10. Oxford City Council have claimed their right 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.
11. The City Council have submitted their estimate as required and this is shown in Column A of Annex 2. The recommended modified estimate is shown in Column B. The modified estimate is at or close to the City Council’s submitted estimate for most activities and carries on the basis of the figures agreed for 2001/02 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.

Summary Tables

12. A summary of the planned expenditure on all activities on all categories of road is shown in Annex 1.
13. Annex 2 is Oxford City Council S.42 estimate and recommended modified estimate as explained above.
14. 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.

Project Appraisal

15. A Detailed Project Appraisal is attached (Annex 3) for the schemes in the programme estimated to cost in excess of £200,000.

RECOMMENDATIONS

16. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

1. endorse the details of the 2002/03 Highway Maintenance Programme as set out in Annex 1 to the report,
2. approve the Oxford City Council’s Section 42 estimate as modified and shown in Column B of Annex 2; and
3. approve the Detailed Project Appraisal for Highway Maintenance Schemes 2002/03 set out in Annex 3.

DAVID YOUNG
Director of Environmental Services

Contact Officer: Richard Dix Tel: Oxford 815663

March 2002

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