Agenda item

Agenda item

Spend on Highways Maintenance and Road Safety

Report of the Director of Highways attached

 

This report outlines the recent capital investment in highway maintenance from the 5-year investment programme.

 

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Highways, which outlined the capital investment in highway maintenance from the 5-year investment programme. 

 

Key points and themes in the report included:

 

  • The recent capital investment in highway maintenance and the fact that the programme is now in year 5  and remains on-time and budget;
  • Highways investment programme has helped deliver Our Manchester strategy and fulfil the greater Manchester Transport Strategy 2040;
  • Future investment decisions remain with any future investment targeting local footways and roads  to encourage sustainable transport, a proposed programme will be brought forward in the next 6 months;
  • There is no specific road safety budget but Highways have continued to secure external funding and have a number of ongoing schemes.

 

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

 

  • Much of the committee’s discussion was around the issue of road safety and the mechanism for funding schemes around the City. Both Deansgate and Piccadilly ward Councillors and Neighbourhood Officers had been unable to access the recent community funding scheme on the basis that other capital schemes haD been delivered within the City Centre;
  • Councillors broadly welcomed the opportunity to bid for road safety funding for their wards but questioned the mechanism through which funding was allocated with cheaper schemes being most likely to secure funding despite not necessarily offering the best value for money. A long-term plan with a more strategic vision was required towards road safety to ensure that schemes could be delivered within a programme of works;
  • The committee asked whether funding existed for further safety cameras to be installed around the City Centre and Kingsway and the potential for further speeding, CCTV and ASB cameras;
  • The Committee queried the separation of funding for resurfacing and road safety where schemes were to be carried out for the same roads but only a matter of months apart. It was noted to be positive to see that over 214 resurfacing projects had been delivered although there’s no clarity on the outstanding projects.

 

The Director of Highways discussed the issue of road safety and the difficulty of identifying an accident trend for 2020 due to the pandemic. Funding shortages meant that enforcement by GMP was the exception rather than the rule especially with speed cameras, which have to meet DfT criteria, although there were plans to update and improve movable CCTV cameras to deal with ASB for example. The City Centre has had considerable investment with further 4 schemes coming forward. E.g. Northern Quarter traffic scheme, Deansgate which are reducing accidents. The City environment was rapidly changing making it difficult to deliver road safety schemes because it was hard to establish the characteristics of a road due to so many developments that impacted on the highway.

 

In terms of the 2021/22 road safety programme methodology and assessment criteria, there were 16 roads across the city that are 40 mph but Kingsway was a long one which made it the hardest to deal with. Speed cameras were not there to generate income and Kingsway was unlikely to meet the rules for a normal speed camera, although officers were looking at average speed cameras.

 

When assessing accident reduction schemes the top three ranked schemes required too much money that MCC did not have available. Budgetary constraints meant that the schemes were reranked on the basis of deliverability within the funding available. The ranking and worked example could be shared with the Committee but consideration was given to accidents, speed cameras, volume of traffic, with a focus on low cost and high impact so that a lower cost solution got a higher score in the process. Neighbourhood officers contacted ward members for their top two priorities in each ward. Members could request further information on successful or unsuccessful proposals to: Roadsafety2021@manchester.gov.uk. 

 

Over the last five years the Council had followed-up active travel bid opportunities such as the City Centre triangle/Wythenshawe with further tranches envisaged. Historically, road safety funding previously came from the Integrated Transport Board which now funded the Metrolink/Bus network.

 

On the point of overlapping resurfacing and road safety works, the Director of Highways stated that it can’t be predicted where and when funding would come available so must be carried out on an individual basis.

 

The Deputy Chief Executive stated that priorities in the capital programme were set by the capital strategy in the budget setting process. Highways works were agreed at £100m previously and now the Council were looking at the future priorities for Manchester.

 

The Executive Member for Environment agreed that it is somewhat misleading to call the road safety scheme a community scheme and it’s about making scant resources going as far as possible across the city. City Centre wards did benefit from the work being done but both highways and neighbourhoods teams are encouraged to discuss further.

 

The Executive Member for Environment suggested requests for proposals came from neighbourhood officers but they may not have been consistent across the City and that she would take this up for future learning. There was at present no allocated road safety budget but Members were to be part of creating that vision with future plans to include works to footways and minor roads that had not been receiving the benefit of funding in recent years.

 

Decisions

 

  1. To note the report;
  2. Appendix 2 to be corrected and reissued to committee members (incorrect date headings details); and
  3. The Director of Highways is to share a worked example of the local safety scheme methodology.

 

Supporting documents: