Nottinghamshire County councillors are to examine the latest review of the county’s highways service next week, as a major report setting out how the council intends to maintain and improve its vast £10 billion road, lighting and footway network returns to the spotlight.
The Place Select Committee meets on 8 December to scrutinise the Highways Review, which has been drawn up by a Cabinet working group following a decision earlier this year to revisit how the authority delivers and prioritises road maintenance, says West Bridgford News.
The document stresses that the authority’s network is one of its most valuable public assets, stretching across all seven districts and touching the daily lives of every resident and business that relies on safe, reliable roads, pavements and lighting. The scale is substantial: the county maintains 96,000 streetlights, 369 highway bridges, more than 45,000 highway trees and around 141,000 drainage assets, making the service one of the most complex and costly operations the council manages. Its replacement value is estimated to exceed £10 billion.
To keep this asset functioning, the council currently operates a capital maintenance programme worth more than £52 million a year together with an annual revenue budget of £20 million – funding that covers day-to-day repairs, inspections, drainage work, streetlighting, weed control and general highway upkeep. Although the report states there are no new financial implications attached to this latest review, the background papers the committee will consider include the significant spending levels linked to the wider Cabinet report.
This new review builds on several earlier pieces of work, particularly the comprehensive highways review completed in 2021–22. That earlier programme brought changes to the council’s approach to patching, surface treatments, public reporting methods and neighbourhood-level working, after years in which residents regularly voiced frustrations about potholes, uneven footways and slow response times. Since then the council has invested in new machinery, the ‘Right First Time’ approach to repairs and improved data collection, while the Department for Transport’s national highways funding formula and inflationary pressures have continued to influence what the authority can deliver.
(Picture: Nottinghamshire County Council)
