The highway network is the highest valued infrastructure asset owned by the Council, with the carriageway and footway asset alone valued in excess of £1 billion. The safe and usable condition of the highway network is essential for maintaining economic and social connectivity, both within Flintshire and with the wider region, and the network is a crucial asset, integral to the daily lives of our residents, whether it’s travelling to work, attending school, accessing services, or enjoying leisure and recreational activities.
Maintaining our highway network to a safe and appropriate standard is a significant challenge, particularly in the face of difficult financial times. It is essential that we manage our highways infrastructure efficiently, balancing immediate needs with long-term sustainability. We must ensure that our investment today meets the demands of tomorrow, delivering value for money whilst ensuring the safety and usability of the network.
In 2024, following Cabinet approval, Flintshire amended its approach to managing its highway assets (this includes roads, footways, street lights, bridges and other associated assets such as signs, road lines/markings etc.) in recognition that the overall condition of the highway network will naturally continue to deteriorate and decline each year without sufficient annual investment.
In realising that the current backlog of structural maintenance on carriageways and footways can only be reduced by adopting a long term strategic approach to improving the highways infrastructure, Flintshire County Council, in conjunction with the Welsh Government, has adopted an all-Wales approach to Highways Asset Management Planning.
The Highway Asset Management Planning (HAMP) framework provides the principles for managing the network, recognising the importance of the highway infrastructure in supporting a number of the Council’s key objectives and the revised plan sets out our strategic approach for managing the assets over the next 5 years (2024-2029). Our aim is to ensure effective and efficient, proactive maintenance of the asset to ensure both a safe and serviceable condition in support of the Council’s key objectives.
The Council operates an approved inspection regime for all assets, which ensures that the funding allocated to each element is sufficient to ensure that the asset is safe and fit for purpose, and thus ensures that we comply with our statutory requirement to maintain the network. Any available funding therefore needs to be carefully allocated to provide maximum benefits. All roads are surveyed to develop programmes for each year’s resurfacing, surface dressing and patching programmes, ensuring that the most effective use of funds is allocated to those areas in most need of corrective or preventative maintenance.
The council’s plan for the highway asset for the period 2024 to 2029 recognises the financial constraints that the local authority is working within. The plan targets the requirement to ensure user safety and then mitigating against deterioration.
A concerted effort to reduce defects on roads will be the priority from 2024 to 2026.
At the end of this period, a review will be undertaken to consider the results of work to investigate if scour protection works are required at certain bridges, whether some bridges need strengthening and whether there is a need to increase investment in the replacement of aged street lighting columns.
The plan does not cover bus stops, private roads and bridges, council owned bridges not on or crossing the highway network and decorative, seasonal lighting.
The following methodology explains the principles derived in prioritising planned maintenance programmes of work:
- Mechanical and visual assessment of the carriageway infrastructure on an annual basis. The information being interpreted by a computerised United Kingdom Pavement Analysis System (UKPMS) to provide an indication as to the level of deterioration of individual roads.
- Visual assessment of the footway infrastructure on an annual basis. The information being input into a data management system to provide an indication as to the level of deterioration of individual footways.
- The output from national road condition surveys (UKPMS and other data sources) is then subject to an engineering analysis to provide the long term strategies for improvement which take into account corporate plans for economic and residential development, regional transport planning, community based needs and local accident statistics.
- Works are prioritised using condition data, safety risk, and whole-life cost principles. This means we balance repairs to the worst areas with preventative treatments to extend the life of roads and avoid more costly reconstruction in future.
During this period, greater emphasis is being placed on maintaining local (unclassified) roads, where condition has deteriorated due to historic underinvestment. This means some main roads may not receive treatment as frequently while this gap is addressed.
The Council operates a defined safety inspection and repair regime, with high-risk defects made safe within 2 hours and other safety repairs completed within 24 hours, in line with national guidance. Increasingly severe weather events can impact the network and require urgent response. This may result in changes to the planned programme during the year. In addition to road resurfacing, the council continues to invest in drainage, street lighting, structures, and traffic signals to ensure the wider highway network remains safe and operational.
A whole life costing approach is utilised in determining programmes for various forms of improvement processes i.e.
- Structural improvement in the form of reconstruction where the level of depreciation of the asset is major. Costs associated with this form of improvement are high and it is the practise of whole life costing to introduce programmes of surface treatment at an early stage of deterioration to prolong the life of an asset to minimise the level of reconstruction works which places a large demand on available funding.
- Surface replacement or strengthening.
- Surface treatment to re-establish the texture of the surface or prolong a surface life by protecting a surface course that is exhibiting early signs of deterioration through loss of binder / aggregate.
- Re-texturing of a carriageway surface which is structurally sound but is exhibiting loss of skidding resistance through the polishing of the aggregate within the surface course.
- To maximise the cost benefit of the financial resources account has to be taken of the benefit to communities through the recognition of local economic and social areas of activity where roads of a similar level of deterioration are under consideration and resources are limited. For example a footway in proximity to a large shopping area or school may have priority over a similar footway in a rural location which has low volumes of pedestrian activity.
- Given current funding levels, it is not possible to prevent all deterioration across the network. The programme focuses on keeping the network safe and serviceable while managing long-term condition as effectively as possible.
The following categories have been included in the list of programmed schemes to identify the factors supporting their inclusion in the programme (Reason for Work in tables below):
- Identified through a condition survey process
- Identified through accident investigations as being an accident cluster site or subject to low skid resistance testing (Sideway-Force Coefficient Routine Investigation Machine (SCRIM)).
- Subject to high maintenance remedial works
Note: Whilst every effort has been made to achieve a definitive programme that will provide effective management of the highway assets, it may be subject to change in content and detail throughout the year. Such changes can arise from the need to address unforeseen maintenance demands arising during the year e.g. emergency public utilities works, weather and budget adjustments.