Agenda item

In response to a previous committee request, this report provides detailed information on funding for road maintenance including the integrity of the utility companies reinstatement work. 

Discussion:

The Assistant Director, Front Line Services introduced the report setting out the background, in particular highlighting that in 2007 it had been identified that the highway maintenance accumulated backlog was around £12 million and that the roads were in a state of decline with the existing funding levels. Following this, a study was carried out which reported a funding shortfall of £13.95 million. However, recent one off investment of £4 million had been spent on resurfacing which had helped to slow the decline by dealing with around 10% of the backlog, which continued to grow year on year.

The Committee was advised that the current maintenance investment on road resurfacing for 2012/2013 was £1.275 million; the consequence of which would result in a further decline in the road network of approximately 1% this year and a similar decline expected each year after that. An additional investment of £1 million - £1.275 million per annum would stop this decline and would, through proper targeting, start to show a reduction over a ten year plan in the number of roads requiring maintenance. The Assistant Director reminded Members that this problem was not specific to Medway but an issue for many Local Authorities across the country but that Medway compared well against other authorities in the South East region.

Members were further advised that there was a significant volume of work created through the number of notifications from the utility companies, particularly as there had been substantial work recently from Southern Water and South East Gas networks and the council was working closely with one of these about the quality of their reinstatement work. The law allowed the statutory undertakers (utility companies) to make a temporary repair following the completion of their work and the company then had six months to replace it properly. The council did not carry out 100% inspections of all replacement works; it would take another 8.5 full time members of staff to achieve that. However, the highway inspectors were about to use new ground-penetrating radar technology to assist them, which produced a 3D map of the work carried out beneath the surface without having to take a core sample.

The Committee commended officers on the thorough and detailed report and discussed a number of issues including:

·        The use of the chemical repair ‘Viafix’ by the highway inspectors, with 643 potholes repaired instantaneously in 2011-2012 and Members were pleased to note that none of the repairs using ‘Viafix’ (which began two years ago) had required further work carried out on them;

·        The level of maintenance on Medway’s roads was very important to residents (reported through the council’s opinion polls and directly to Ward Members) as it had a real consequence on their physical environment;

·        If the budget continued in its present form, then the actual structure of some roads (the foundations, rather than the surface) would become affected with a higher financial consequence for the council;

·        The problem of poor road structure with less funding than required to maintain it, particularly harsh winters and exacerbated through poor reinstatements by some of the utility companies was accumulating liability for the future;

·        The law favoured the statutory undertakers, particularly with regard to only being required to make a temporary reinstatement and to complete it properly within six months and, with the roll out of high speed broadband, the government’s stance was probably to relax these laws further;

·        The total defect rate in the report seemed very low and Member’s concluded from this that many of the defects were not being seen by inspectors as only a small sample were inspected;

·        The need to tighten up the inspection regime now, to avoid a backlog of problems in 5-10 years time. If funding could be found now, it would solve huge structural and financial problems and create savings in the future;

·        If an additional 8.5 staff were employed to carry out 100% inspections, what would be the cost benefit analysis to the council and the impact on its assets. (If 8.5 staff was not possible, then how many additional staff would be required to make a significant impact). If 100% inspections were possible, it should result in the utility companies acting quickly to reinstate the roads/pavements to the durable quality required. At the moment, it seemed that a lot of the repairs required were around the edges of the utility company’s reinstatements, which could leave the council with a significant liability not of its own making;

·        Resurfacing of pavements and number of claims against accidents on pavements, although Members noted that the number of claims against the council had decreased over the past few years and trip hazards were dealt with in a timely manner. The number of these attributable to utility company works was unknown;

·        The technology being employed by the Council to allocate resources across the road network and the use of the 3D ground penetrating radar, although the JCAM technology would not be fully functional until 2013/2014 and the benefits of this were untried.

·        The Chief Finance Officer advised that the financial pressure on highways was shown within the Medium Term Financial Plan, which was used as a starting point to prepare the annual budget. However, this pressure was part of an overall larger gross deficit for 2013/2014.

Decision:

The Committee agreed to:

(a)    refer the report to Cabinet for consideration as part of the budget setting process for 2013/2014 and asked officers to advise on the cost benefit analysis of potential additional investment in utility reinstatement inspections;

(b)    request a Briefing Note on the options available to the Council to manage the utility companies (including information such as how long after a permanent reinstatement is made does the council have to enforce the utility company to re-do the work, if it is sub-standard) and that this information is provided to Cabinet for deliberation along with this report;

(c)     request that a report be submitted to the Committee in due course on the use of the JCAM technology.