West Northamptonshire’s fleet of highways machinery is preparing to roll out the summer road maintenance programme, focusing on major projects that require warm and dry weather conditions.
Like many councils, West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) faces the challenge of roads deteriorating during cold and wet winter weather, needing urgent action. Over the years, here as well as elsewhere, there has been a gradual decline in road conditions due to available budgets and funding not being able to keep up. WNC is prioritising essential work, alongside a comprehensive maintenance plan for the year. However, adverse weather conditions, including record rainfall since October, have hindered schedules.
WNC and its highways partner, Kier, will carry out various projects across West Northamptonshire, including road resurfacing, patching, improving surface drainage systems, enhancing our green spaces and increasing biodiversity, cleaning gullies, and emergency repairs.
I schemes for the year ahead will be listed in the annual plan, which will be published shortly.
“We understand people’s frustration with the current condition of the roads, and we apologise for this. Maintaining our roads is a significant task, especially during the wet and cold winter months. Therefore, spring through to autumn is when we can undertake most of the necessary work.”Cllr Jonathan Nunn, Leader of WNC
“It’s a real challenge for all councils to balance competing priorities with our limited budgets. We allocate £26m annually across our road and transport services, but this only stretches so far. Resurfacing all roads in West Northants would cost approximately £250 million, while our total budget for running all services, including supporting vulnerable children and adults, is just over £400 million per year.”
“This is why we’ve invested in new technology, such as the Pothole Pro machine, which has significantly improved the volume and quality of repairs. As a result of finding ways to use this machine more efficiently, we expect that this year the machine will use 16 tonnes of repair material per day, up from the 9 tonnes last year which was the amount anticipated when the machine was bought.”
In the Daventry area, whose road conditions were recently highlighted nationally by the ‘Daventry Banksie’ campaigner, WNC has received nearly 4,000 reports in the past six months. We’ve attended around 500 emergencies, repaired 2,500 defects, and completed over 10,000 square meters of road repairs.
“In the past year, we’ve completed four major road repair schemes in the area, with further resurfacing work planned for this month. However, this work must be conducted in warmer weather to prevent repairs from failing. Some repairs of particular concern to Daventry residents are on busy roundabouts. We’ve repaired some already, with a further key roundabout scheduled for deeper repair later this month, as warmer spring weather is essential for proper repairs.”
“Considering these challenges, we continue to seek ways of increasing the money we have available for road repairs. We also welcome the news of the £162 million allocation from central government over the next seven years for our wider road network, as part of the HS2 phase 2 cancellation. We eagerly await further details on when we will get this money, the profile of how much we will get in each of the next seven years, and what criteria will be placed on the use of it, so we can start to use it on the local road and transport priorities that are important to us and to West Northants residents.”
