Highway Infrastructure Asset Management - Resilient Network Plan

1.1 Background

The highway infrastructure asset is the most valuable single asset owned by the Council and is vital to local economic prosperity and residents' quality of life. Any severe disruption to the highway asset network can have a significant impact on the economic activity of the Borough through loss of income to our Town Centres as well as disruption to Local, National and Multi-national industries.

Following a succession of severe weather events, which had a significant impact on the highway network, the Department for Transport (DfT) carried out a review of the resilience of the transport network to extreme weather events and in 2014 they published the Transport Resilience Review.

In particular Recommendation 35 stated that 'Each Local Highway Authority should make an early start in identifying a 'resilient network' to which it will give priority through maintenance and other measures in order to maintain economic activity and access to key services during extreme weather'. This is further supported by Recommendation 20 of the 2016 Code of Practice - Well Managed Highway Infrastructure.

Whilst we already have an established Resilient Network, developed in response to the above reports and following a succession of severe winter weather events and salt shortages, this policy fomalises our development, management and ongoing monitoring of the resilient network.

1.2 Aim of the Resilient Network

The aim of a Resilient Network is to identify routes of strategic importance which will receive priority through maintenance and other measures in order to maintain economic activity and protect access to key services and infrastructure during extreme weather and other disruptive events.  We aim to have a Resilient Highway Network that is less prone to failure and robust in the face of extreme weather events, industrial action and major incidents through a combination of measures which may include:

• prioritisation of reactive maintenance resources in the event of an incident
• prioritisation of funding to mitigate deterioration of the asset
• increased frequency of cyclical and reactive maintenance
• network management

This methodology will be used on all of our infrastructure highway assets, including:

• carriageways and footways
• structures
• drainage
• street lighting
• traffic signals