Councillor P Thompson asked Councillor Gillbe, Executive Member for Planning and Transport the following published question:
Can the Executive Member give an update on this Council’s plans for this autumn, 2023, to repair the many potholes in public roads in Bracknell Forest Borough Council area [which are of great concern to many residents] and report to Council, each year, before winter?
In response Councillor Gillbe, Executive Member for Planning and Transport, provided the following published response:
Without doubt, the travelling public are contending with a national pothole problem. Like all highway authorities nationally, the challenge in Bracknell Forest centres around an ageing road network which needs increased maintenance investment.
Whilst the generally difficult winters in the UK, combined with increasingly frequent severe weather events and ongoing traffic demands are all factors in the national pothole problem, there is no doubt that insufficient maintenance funding is at the core of this issue.
Council’s receive annual grant funding for highway maintenance from central Government but this has broadly remained at a static level for many years (if not a decade) and the scale of this funding has simply not matched the demands of the ageing infrastructure. And of course, this Government grant is not provided solely for road maintenance, but also for meeting the needs of wider highway assets like street lighting, highway structures and drainage systems. Rising inflation has of course worsened this situation, with some construction materials having increased by over 35% in the past 18 months.
In practical terms, roads have a life-span beyond which they require resurfacing; but this process is expensive and there are many candidate roads. Even with the additional Council funding provided there is no alternative but to repair potholes in locations where our first choice would otherwise be to provide a whole new road surface. This is not unique to Bracknell Forest and all highway authorities face this reality.
But despite this challenge, the Council must be responsible. We must do all we can to maintain a safe highway network for our residents. This means managing the unavoidable pothole problem in a systematic, responsive and affordable way.
Our engineers continuously inspect and monitor the highways, necessarily making risk assessments to prioritise our resources within the limitations of our funding. Our highway inspectors patrol and identify potholes, but of course the public also play their part by reporting potholes too. There is no doubt, however, without an increase in Government funding this pothole challenge will be relentless.
Throughout the past winter and early spring (broadly October to April) the Council made 709 carriageway repairs, involving 1871 tonnes of road material.
Post winter (from May onwards) there has been a further push to stabilise network condition with 754 carriageway repairs alongside our annual road resurfacing programme – a combined total of 5798 tonnes of material.
Councillor P Thompson asked Councillor Gillbe, Executive Member for Planning and Transport the following supplementary question:
What proportion of our roadways are currently considered to be beyond their expected lifespan and what action is the council taking to address the funding shortfall as it is exacerbating these hazardous conditions?
In response Councillor Gillbe confirmed that the council’s engineers undertook an annual condition survey across the boroughs 450kms of road, and that this informed the resurfacing forward plan which was based on a worst first basis. Whilst many candidate roads would be visibly poor in condition, others would be less obvious such as where there were structural weaknesses which is why a data led and responsible approach was important. Currently 11% of the overall road network was in a condition which required resurfacing as it had reached the end of its useful life. This figured matched the average for England and Wales. Despite the shortfall in Government funding, the council had increased its own capital funding towards highway maintenance in recent years. However, no Local Authority will be able to fix this problem unless supported adequately by government and this was the message that Councillor Gillbe would seek to deliver at the highest level as maintain safety for the travelling public was key. Councillor Gillbe also praised Councillor P Thompson as a passionate advocate for his community, and that his emails to Councillor Gillbe on behalf of his residents were a testament to this. Councillor Gillbe stated that he was happy to meet up with him outside of the meeting to discuss any specific examples within his ward and would be happy to go on a field trip to be shown the evidence.