KCC Highways tour

I recently visited the KCC Highways department at their base in Ashford to gain a greater understanding, as a local County Councillor, about the work they undertake to maintain our local highways network. This is a particular concern of mine given the state of the local roads with pot holes and other structural repairs needed.

Cuts to Local Government funding has hit highways and associated infrastructure budgets hard, with ridiculously high figures for the cost of getting the roads back to standard. The estimated cost to bring the roads up to standard is an estimated £630 million.

Until the national picture of funding for local authorities is more evenly settled that better represents the demand and challenges local authorities face all I can do it to keep investigating the use and spending of money by KCC is properly scrutinised.

Accidents on the road are investigated by KCC and assessed for cause, briefly (and very simply) whether the accident could have been ‘engineered out’ or was it solely the fault of the driver (driver behaviour). Engineering of roads to make them safer can an impact in certain locations but to make the roads safer it relies on three themes, which only together can help keep us all safe on the roads; they are: Engineering, Education and Enforcement. With cut backs across the board in the police and cuts in the KCC education (road safety budget) and engineering, this can only cause potential detriment to our local communities. Volunteers from the public can help by applying to the police to do a Speed Watch, where members of the public record vehicles’ speeds and report them to the police.

There are a range of KCC documents including the KCC Local Transport Plan which sets out KCC’s vision and standards. However a number of these documents are out dated and need bringing into the 21st Century, and I shall be representations on this matter to KCC Members and Officers concerned.

In theory, every drain is cleaned every year for maintenance and hot spot places that have been identified are cleaned every 6 months but can be more if required. The budget for planned repairs of drainage has been cut in half from last year.

It was a very informative meeting where I also saw first hand the amount of regulations (either from legislation and policy) that must be adhered to that staff must complete to get new schemes in the design phase let alone when the new schemes are in motion on the ground. My thanks to the Officers for spending some time with me to help me better understand the scale of the challenge on the road ahead.