Agenda item

To update Members on the Highways Maintenance Manual.

To accept the report and to note the observations, and recommend that the Highways, Engineering and YGC Department:

 

·       puts arrangements in place to notify councillors when a reported problem has been resolved.

·       looks at establishing arrangements to review the standard of inspections.

 

The report was presented by the Cabinet Member for Highways, Engineering and YGC, Head of Highways, Engineering and YGC Department and the Dwyfor Area Engineer. ⁠Attention was drawn briefly to the following main points:

 

Members were reminded that the Highway Maintenance Manual had been approved by the Cabinet in July 2023 and that it was now operational.  Attention was drawn to the main objectives of the manual's implementation, namely ensuring that:

 

·       the Council’s highway asset maintenance procedures comply with current national guidelines;

·       the Council provides a safe and well-maintained highway network;

·       that appropriate maintenance standards are implemented consistently throughout
Gwynedd;

·       that the Council’s standards and approach to implementation are consistent with
other highway authorities within Wales;

·       that the Council will continue to be able to defend third-party claims and legal action by individuals;

·       that future highway maintenance budget allocations are influenced by risk rather than by other factors.

 

It was confirmed that the manual had been developed to plan how the Council complied with the specific duty under the Highways Act 1980, as well as a number of national codes of practice, to maintain the roads adopted by the Council. ⁠It was detailed that the manual was based on the Highways Asset Management Plan (July 2010), which itself had been influenced by the ‘Code of Practice for Highways Maintenance Management 2005’.

 

It was noted that the Department was operating based on the Dwyfor, Arfon and Meirionnydd areas, due to the size of the county. It was explained that this was an effective system to respond to road maintenance enquiries on a timely basis, ensuring that the same arrangements and procedures were in place for all areas.

 

It was confirmed that the manual was used as a daily guide on how to maintain county roads and protected the Council from third party claims and court proceedings. It was emphasised that the Council had received 343 third party claims between 1 April 2016 and 1 April 2024 and that the Council had managed to defend 294 of them. It was detailed that this was a success rate of nearly 86%.

 

It was explained that every local authority in Wales complied with a new code of practice published in 2016, namely 'Well-managed Highway Infrastructure: A Code of Practice'. It was elaborated that the County Surveyor’s Society Wales consulted with local authorities to formulate nationally consistent schemes to ensure that there were no changes to road conditions when passengers moved from one county to another. It was emphasised that local authorities were establishing a network hierarchy, inspection arrangements, repair system as well as using risk to influence how the budget was allocated, to ensure that there were no major changes among counties.

 

Specific attention was drawn to clause 7.1 of the manual which noted that road defects were categorised as critical defect, safety defect or maintenance defect. It was noted that the service inspected roads on a regular basis, every month or 3 or 6 months depending on the road class and its usage.

 

It was explained that the service responded to any complaints and enquiries about road conditions from the public, community councils and Elected Members as soon as possible and, in doing so, it considered other potential defects nearby when appropriate. It was reported that the department's asset system allowed workers to view the history of road defects as they visited new defects, to see if those defects remained a problem or if they had been resolved. It was explained that they would send reports to the WDM system, namely the main system to monitor work. It was confirmed that the WDM system sent a weekly report to officers about defects that had been attended to and to see if they had been resolved in a timely manner.

 

In response to the above, a member suggested that it would be beneficial for members to receive a confirmation when a reported problem had been resolved.

 

⁠It was explained that past arrangements required workers to respond to any safety defects within 24 hours resolving any defects or scheduling its resolution. It was acknowledged that this placed great pressure on service employees and it was often not a good use of time. ⁠It was noted that this arrangement had now been changed so that workers tended to safety defects by the end of the following working day after it was reported, which allowed flexibility on weekends and bank holidays. It was explained that this allowed workers to programme work more effectively and create packages of work to ensure that defects were dealt with in a timely manner while ensuring that workers did not waste time travelling. It was confirmed that concerns had not been noted since this change had been introduced but the Department would continue to monitor the situation.

 

A member noted his support to the manual which noted the expectations making it measurable in terms of performance. He enquired whether inspectors were required to examine previous inspection reports and if there was a system in place to review inspection reports.

 

In response, it was noted that inspections were not reviewed at present. It was noted that consideration was given to undertake ad-hoc visits as part of the new arrangements. It was explained that road inspectors had access to historical inspections on the tablet used. It was noted that establishing a system to review inspections from external officers was something to consider.

 

It was explained that the Department was in the process of providing a work programme based on several structural maintenance categories to reflect the real priority of roads that required attention on an all-Gwynedd basis. It was acknowledged that there were substantial pressures on the Road Maintenance budget and, therefore, it was detailed that the categories considered when prioritising work were:

 

·       Hierarchy

·       Scanner data

·       Visual condition

·       Local area and network priorities

·       Defect levels

·       Construction age

 

If the prioritised roads did not receive attention within the current year, assurance was given that every effort was being made to ensure that they were high priority roads in the following year. However, it was acknowledged that some elements influenced the work programme's prioritisation system such as rapid deterioration in the condition of other roads or a landslide. It was emphasised that the Department's intention was to develop a work programme over three years instead of annual programmes in order to note the priorities of the work programme and to list any reasons why any road had slipped from the priority list.

 

It was explained that street lighting received consideration in the highway maintenance manual and that they were assessed on their visual condition and electrical safety. It was detailed that a programme had been developed to undertake structural tests on light columns via an external contractor. It was noted that these tests scored the columns into 'red' (needs to be disposed in 4 hours), 'amber' (need to retest the column within 6 months) or 'green (need to retest the column within 5 years) categories. An observation was received stating that street lighting could be too dark in some areas, which caused concerns to pedestrians in the evenings. It was recognised that some locations needed to be revisited to assess the situation and adapt the 'dimming' settings of lighting in the evenings as required.

 

Gratitude was expressed for the report.

 

RESOLVED

 

To accept the report and to note the observations, and recommend that the Highways, Engineering and YGC Department:

 

·       puts arrangements in place to notify councillors when a reported problem has been resolved.

·       looks at establishing arrangements to review the standard of inspections.