Agenda item

The Forum considered a report by the Director of Environment and Transport with regard to the Highway Maintenance Strategy and Policy Review.  The report was introduced by Ms Carruthers with a copy filed with the minutes.

Ms Carruthers took Members through the report and advised that this followed on from the report to the last meeting entitled A-Roads to Zebras – A Comprehensive Maintenance Review.  This  detailed the reasons for the review and the current extreme financial challenges and the alteration in the way that funding is being processed by the Department for Transport, together with the changes that will need to occur to comply with  the new Code of Practice. We need to alter our approach to Highway Maintenance to maximise the amount of funding available.  It will need to be more of a risk based approach and at the same time operating with a considerably reduced budget. 

Ms Carruthers reported that the views of the public on services and priorities were fed into the comprehensive report to Cabinet on 13th December 2016, which set out a draft Highway Asset Management Policy and Strategy which have been produced and are attached to the report for information.  Ms Carruthers encouraged Members to feed into the current consultation on the draft policy and strategy that is open until on 24th March and to also encourage others to take part.  The results will be used to formulate the final policy and strategy which will determine future years work programmes.

Ms Carruthers highlighted that a pilot scheme is going to be set up whereby the Council will work with the community to give clarity on what they can get involved with.  She advised that there is a whole spectrum of involvement from grass cutting to sign cleaning.  Ms Carruthers stated that the pilot will be important to ensure we gain the knowledge of what it would be reasonable to enable communities to take on in terms of highway maintenance functions in future. 

Cllr Sheahan advised that it may vary from parish to parish.  Ms Carruthers agreed and stated that pilots will help shape what the service will look like in future.   It is likely it will be very different and that knowing what the public’s priorities are is therefore very important.  Some services will be stopped, some will continue as now and some could be carried out by the community.

Cllr Harrison asked about how funding would be made for the Parish Council’s carrying out these duties.  Ms Carruthers clarified that there would be no funding for these works, the County Council would offer support, training, legal and insurance assistance only.   There is the voluntary precept if the Parish Council wants to go down that line.

Cllr Legrys stated that he welcomed the honesty in this report and for officers bringing it to Members attention.  He asked that the Comms team communicate this message as Councillors are constantly being asked for pot holes to be repaired and overhanging trees cut down and it is difficult for Councillors to continually be saying it won’t be done.  Ms Carruthers responded that the County Council still have their core services i.e. pot holes repair but this will be done on a more risk based approach. 

There was a discussion about the Customer Service Centre and the poor level of service.  Ms Carruthers advised that she would speak to the Manager as all urgent issues should be passed directly to operation control. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

i)          That the report of the Director of Environment and Transport be noted; and

ii)         That Ms Carruthers will speak to the Manager of the CSC to ensure all urgent issues are passed to operation control.