Agenda and minutes

To appoint a Vice-Chair to the Panel for the 2010/11 Municipal Year.

RESOLVED that Councillor Kolker be appointed Vice-Chair of the Panel for the 2010/11 Municipal Year.

To note any changes in membership of the Panel made in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 4.3.

Apologies had been received from Councillor Dean, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport and Councillor Odgers.  The Panel noted that in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rules 4.3 and 4.4, Councillor Harris replaced Councillor Odgers, for the purposes of this meeting.

Report of the Head of Policy and Improvement, detailing the Inquiry on Highways’ approach to asset management, attached.

The Panel considered the report of the Head of Policy and Improvement detailing the terms of reference and draft inquiry plan as approved by Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee on 20^th May 2011 and requesting that the Panel considers the background information provided.  (Copy of the report circulated with the agenda and appended to the signed minutes).

The Panel received a presentation from the Public Realm Manager and the Asset Manager to enable Members to understand how the council assessed the state of the roads and pavement repairs, with a focus on how these repairs were prioritised.  The presentation consisted of a broad overview of the local and national perspective with regard to highways repair, how the Transport Asset Plan developed and was delivered and the prioritisation matrix.

The Panel noted that:-

• Southampton’s Highway Assets were its largest asset with a gross replacement cost of £985 million with the approximate breakdown of the replacement cost as follows:

*  roads/carriageways and footways – 65-70%

*  structures and bridges  - 30%

*  street lighting and safety road constraints – the balance.

• there was a funding backlog of £85 million and it would take approximately 12 years to clear the backlog by spending a total of £12-£15 million per year;
• Southampton was one of the first authorities to have a Transport Management Asset Plan (TAMP), approved in June 2008, which was a strategic asset management approach to best meet the needs of current and future residents and users by prioritising work.  It was a statutory requirement for local Authorities to report on how their assets (highways) were managed in respect of the condition, performance and treatment/ preventative maintenance;  The TAMP had been supported by all political parties and there was no political intervention;
• roads in Shire counties which were more rural were maintained at a different standard to urban roads and that in terms of mileage and community, Southampton could be benchmarked with similar authorities in Plymouth and Bristol;
• that the basic construction of a large number of unclassified roads built in the 1940’s was either inadequate or no longer appropriate for today’s levels of traffic; At some point most lorries will travel on an unclassified road.
• Government had stopped national indicators for unclassified roads, with a greater focus of recent spending on principal and classified roads;
• maintenance and repairs on unclassified roads was done in smaller structural patches followed by a thin overlay;
• the life expectancy of principal main roads was 10 to 12 years and unclassified road was 4 to 8 years.  However, it was noted that then a principal road fails it has a more significant impact on the community and a higher cost of repair as these are gateways to the city and often have major safety issues;
• Southampton’s roads  had the following performance indicators: