Worst first road repair plan to continue in bid to keep bills low

HIGHWAYS engineers at a cash-strapped council which has vowed to cut services “to the bone” will continue to repair roads on a “worst first” basis in a bid to keep maintenance bills low.

Local authority leaders in Barnsley have an ongoing programme of cuts which councillors say will allow them to provide a “minimum council” in response to Westminster austerity measures.

Road maintenance has been examined as part of the process, and although £1.9m has been found for repairs, the budget for this year is the same as 2011/12 and not expected to rise for five years.

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Barnsley Council’s ruling cabinet will be asked to approve the £1.9m spending when it meets tomorrow, and officers hope to add that to a £1.3m Government grant to give a total spend of £3.2m.

Their report warns leading councillors that the current “worst first” approach is the minimum the public will expect and recommends that the cabinet sanction the spending.

Officers say: “It is a historical fact that pre-1999 the strategy that focused on the principal road network starved the local network of cash resulting in a high rate of failure on roads across the borough.

“By taking a progressive, targeted, but economic approach, the network has seen incremental improvement.

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“To stop investment will do two things. Firstly, condition worsens and consequently the council will see increased claims for third party damage.

“Secondly, the cost of repair increases with time, as the carriageway of footway deteriorates further.

“Although it is critical to maintain the highway network as good asset management, it is equally valid in supporting the economy, especially in terms of reducing disruption and congestion cause by highway works and the impression that a poor network would give to those businesses investing in Barnsley.”

Officers say they are aware that there are some communities which may have been asking for roads repairs for some time, but which have not reached the criteria required under the “worst first” approach.

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But they add: “The risk of deviating from the approach means that an objective engineer’s assessment could be diluted by subjective local opinion and this may not directly impact on continuous improvement.”

Statistics compiled by Barnsley Council show that the condition of the borough’s unclassified and so-called non-prinicipal roads has improved dramatically over the last ten years.

In 2002 more than 60 per cent of those roads were in need of maintenance, while today around 30 per cent of unclassified roads are in a poor condition, while less than 10 per cent of non-principal roads are not up to scratch.

Engineers make it clear in their report that progress would have been even better had it not been for a series of “adverse weather events” including the floods of 2007 and the extreme freezing temperatures of the last three winters.

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It is also likely that Barnsley, in common with many other local authorities in Yorkshire will have suffered further roads problems as a result of the prolonged, heavy rain the region suffered in April.

Last week the Yorkshire Post reported that pothole numbers had increase hugely across Yorkshire with Sheffield, Wakefield and North Yorkshire councils all reporting serious problems.

David Weeks, director of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, a group representing road builders and asphalt producers, said the full effect of the downpours would not be seen for two or three months.

“Because roads aren’t properly maintained, there are cracks in the road and the water pours into these,” he said. “If water gets into the structure of the road, it deteriorates.

“The full effects of this heavy rainfall will be seen over the next two-three months. Roads that local authorities thought would wait a few months, they will now find on the critical list.”