Local Highway Maintenance Transparency Report 2025 - 2026

The Department for Transport requires all local highways authorities to publish information about their highways maintenance activities to help local taxpayers see the difference that funding is making in their areas.

1 Our highway network

Gateshead Council, as the highway authority, has a legal responsibility to maintain adopted highway in the borough (except the A1 and A194(M), which are maintained by National Highways). Most adopted highway has been in existence for many years, but the network continues to change as a result of new development or alterations to existing routes to accommodate modern requirements. 

The total length of the highway network in Gateshead is approximately 560 miles (900km). The network reflects the mixed character of Gateshead, ranging from major urban routes carrying large volumes of traffic to more lightly used rural roads some over 200 metres in altitude providing access to outlying villages and farms. It includes 740 miles (1191km) of footway, 32,000 streetlights, 289 bridges and other highway structures, and 170 traffic signaled junctions or crossings. 

Gateshead's position within the Tyneside conurbation means that, as well as catering for local traffic, there are significant amounts of travel through the area to and from adjoining areas. The Newcastle / Gateshead urban core (including Newcastle city centre) is the main regional centre for shopping, leisure and employment providing over 80,000 jobs, and draws on a wide regional catchment area. This results in additional pressures on the main cross boundary routes from commuter and other traffic. These are intensified by the limited number of river crossings, which means that traffic converges at a small number of points on the network. The council shares maintenance responsibilities with Newcastle City for a number of bridges across the Tyne. 

Table 1.1 Lengths of highways, footways and cycleways 

Table 2 Annual financial allocations

* Estimate

2.1 Reactive (revenue) budget types of activity

In general, the reactive maintenance budget is used for immediate and urgent repairs needed to keep the highway and pavements safe for all customers. Issues reported online or picked up by our five area inspectors may be anything from a pothole to broken flag or damaged gully and can be expensive during poor weather such as flooding, frost or high winds which can cause problems for signs.

The numbers of defects are carefully monitored as is the budget at our quarterly Highway Asset Management Working Group. Problem issues can then be addressed at the meeting and preventative capital schemes used to address areas of constant pressure and repeat repairs. This may be a new drainage system where the existing infrastructure is failing or a resurfacing or reconstruction scheme where constant reactive repairs are failing.

Table 2.1 Annual repair costs        

                        
Repair numbers and subsequent costs for reactive maintenance fluctuate from year to year depending on the weather.  2018 being a cold winter led to increases in pothole repairs due to the freeze thaw effect on the carriageways. Similarly, 2023 to 2024 was very wet and cold with many potholes and blocked gulleys. 

Footpath repairs, broken flags and kerbs make up the highest proportion of repairs annually, making up an average of 33% of all repairs (table 2.1 above).  Potholes make up on average 24% of the total number of reactive repairs with the council spending an average £343,967 on repairing potholes annually from the reactive maintenance budget since 2020.

Table 2.11 Estimate of the number of potholes filled using reactive maintenance budget

2.2 Preventative (capital) maintenance  

The capital budget is used for preventative maintenance for larger planned schemes such as the resurfacing and replacement of carriageways and footpaths. It is also used for bridge and structural repairs, street lighting and flooding investigations and small schemes. The schemes are selected from the annual surveys and inspections of the network as well as requests from our residents and council members. 

The council is always looking to boost preventative maintenance spending with extra capital spending (prudential borrowing) in key areas such as footpath repairs, unclassified roads and traffic signal maintenance to reduce the burden on the revenue funded reactive maintenance budget. We have an invest to save project for street lighting modernisation and replacement of ageing columns which is driving down energy costs and reducing the number of reactive repairs.

All of the council's structures are part of an ongoing inspection programme set out in section 3 of the council's Highway Maintenance Plan on the council's website.

Programmes of capital work are determined from the inspections and details of the 2025 to 26 programme are shown in section 3 of this document.

The council is actively targeting the unclassified highway network which is much larger than our classified A, B and C road network and is generally in a poorer condition (see Table 2.2).  

Extra council capital funding using prudential borrowing has been used to fund a large-scale thin surfacing programme since 2020 initially with micro-ashphalt and now with Ultithin - another form of thinner surfacing ideal for unclassified roads with low traffic volumes. This is part of our plan to repair and resurface greater lengths of road using appropriate materials for the road type.

Table 2.2 Planned maintenance capital programme 2024 to 2025

Details of all the proposed carriageway and footway programmes for 2025 to 2026 are shown in section 4.

Updates on all scheme proposals are also always on the council website.

The council works closely with its partners such as Northumbrian Water and the Environment Agency to develop major flood alleviation schemes.  However, there are many smaller capital funded schemes related to the highway network that are carried out using the Capital preventative maintenance budget each year.  In 2024 to 2025 we commenced a programme of gully repairs where damaged drainage infrastructure required a small capital scheme, over 50 such schemes are planned over the next two years to remove the burden from the reactive maintenance budget. Programme details for 2025 to 2026 are provided in section 4.

The council's reactive maintenance spends is, as explained, often determined by the weather so a key aim is to make what is a fragile network more resilient by increasing the proportion of funding dedicated to preventative maintenance. This funding may be from central government initiatives or local prudential borrowing 

Road condition assessments on the local classified road network in England are currently made predominantly using surface condition assessment for the national network of roads (SCANNER) laser-based technology.

The unclassified highway network is surveyed using a coarse visual or manual survey with trained inspectors. (CVI)

A number of parameters measured in these surveys are used to produce a road condition indicator which is categorised into three condition categories:

• Green - no further investigation or treatment required
• Amber - maintenance may be required soon
• Red - should be considered for maintenance

A typical example is shown on figure 1.

Surveys are carried out annually in Gateshead across the network and the results are published both by the DfT and by the council on their website. The survey data is downloaded onto the council's asset management software application and used to direct the annual highway maintenance programmes.  

Figure 1 Highway condition 

3.1 Situation in Gateshead

The A, B and C roads in Gateshead are in a good condition; ranked in the highest road condition quartile of local highway authorities across the country. As an authority we can keep on top of repairs on these roads using capital planned maintenance budgets and targeted interventions using the latest asset management software to model current and future life expectancy.

The condition of the unclassified network (residential and industrial estates) is poor however with a backlog of 123 km in need of repair (Table 3.1). We have targeted considerable resources using different methods and techniques in the last three years to this area, the backlog of unclassified roads requiring repair has tended to remain constant at around 20% of the unclassified network indicating the extent of the problem however the latest results show an improvement for the first time in seven years.  

As our neighbouring authorities have similar backlog issues on their unclassified roads the issue has been raised with the North East Combined Authority and is flagged up in the regional Transport Asset Management Plan. We continue to target the unclassified network as shown in (Table 2.2) with almost 60 % of spend in that area but annually this is still less than 10 km of the 123 km estimated backlog.

Longer term extra capital funding has been provided by government in 2023 to 2024 and onwards to 2027 including the additional Network North funding (from the cancelled HS2 project) and Pothole funding. The regional TAMP also provides certainty of funding and it is hoped this will draw the condition indicator down and away from the existing "steady state".

Table 3.1 Percentage of road network that should be considered for maintenance in Gateshead

Table 3.2 Road condition categories by year 

3.2 Gateshead's unclassified network

The unclassified network makes up over 75 % of the total highway network at 682 km and although very urban in nature in the east and centre of Gateshead, in the west it is very rural with country lanes and some steep inclines to the Derwent and Team river valleys.

This has led to different issues arising in certain areas although the western unclassified network has lower volumes of traffic upon it the roads are more susceptible to the freeze thaw process and are not always suitable for thin- surfacing products which would be appropriate on housing estates in the built-up areas. Our strategy has been to use thin surfacing on unclassified urban roads with low traffic volumes identified as red on the CVI surveys but also with high volumes of reactive maintenance repairs. In the rural west some repairs have had to be more extensive although we have had success with jet patching in certain areas.

The council has provided extra funding to address the backlog of works on the unclassified network with prudential borrowing over the last four years to help the situation, but we would need to invest much greater funding to begin to drive down the backlog of works accrued on the unclassified network. 

Figure 3.2 Unclassified network condition Winlaton Gateshead 2024

Green = up to standard

Red = work potentially required

4.1 Overall strategy 

Gateshead Highway Asset Management Plan (HAMP) / Highway Management

The Gateshead HAMP provides the strategic framework for the management of the highway network in Gateshead. It is updated annually and reported to the Council's Cabinet. It provides the latest performance information and details progress with the key targets that have been set. The HAMP has two other key documents which provide the detail required to direct the management of the highway they are the Highway Maintenance Plan and the Highway Asset Management Framework both of which are available on the council's website. 

The council has a HAMP working group where senior officers look at quarterly performance with targets and monitor scheme progress and financial management.

Outcomes from investment in the asset are monitored closely to make sure they align with strategies.

The council understands the value of highway asset management as an effective way to manage limited resources and has been developing their highway asset management plans since 2014. On the following principles:

• Data driven based on objective information - using credible and current data such as routine condition surveys, safety inspections, customer reports,
• Objective driven - with resource allocation decisions based on clear policy goals and objectives.
• Performance based - policy objectives translated into performance measures that are used for day-to-day management and for strategic management.
• Monitoring and review - performance results are monitored and reported for their impacts

A full list of policies and targets is in section 6 of the Gateshead Highways Asset Management Plan 2018 to 2030. 

HAMP Targets 2024 to 2025 

4.11 Best practise delivering innovation and efficiency 

Gateshead Council asset officers meet regularly with their colleagues in the North East Combined Authority area to share best practise and benchmark service provision and share ideas on innovation. Repair times and standards have been successfully improved after benchmarking and new customer focused reporting systems introduced.

During 2023 to 2024 a more targeted approach was taken to footpath repairs in Gateshead. Higher risk areas with greater footfall such as in local centres, outside hospitals, schools and residential homes were given a greater priority after initially looking at the condition surveys, local feed-back and our reactive repair records.

The programme also received extra internal funding and so far over 5000m² of footpath at a cost of £300,000 has been repaired with this programme which commenced in 2023 to 2024 and has continued into 2024 to 2025. 

The council has been gradually converting its traffic signals from tungsten halogen to LED which has brought with it great efficiencies in not only carbon savings and electricity costs but also reduced the numbers of repair visits. The council has also trialled various low carbon materials for resurfacing roads from warm lay materials as opposed to hot rolled asphalt that exhibits much higher carbon production.

Other new products such as Ultithin which is a thin surfacing material suitable for lightly used estate roads are now being extensively used. Like other thin surfacing products this is a layer added to an existing surface to extend its life without the planing out and subsequent transport costs in finance and carbon. This product appears to have the advantage in terms of life expectancy over some other products we have tested in Gateshead. 

We have trialled various products to deal with potholes including jet patching and have now decided to use the pothole pro from JCB this summer.

Our overall annual carbon output from materials used in highway maintenance is monitored annually. Our future aim is to continually look at new products and ways of reducing our carbon footprint in the processes involved in highway maintenance. 

4.2 Carriageway resurfacing /reconstruction 2025 to 2026 

4.21 Classified and bus routes

4.22 Unclassified roads

4.23 Back lanes

4.24 Surface dressing

4.25 Ultithin programme on unclassified roads 

4.3 Footways 

4.4 Structures and bridges

4.5 Street lighting

4.6 Drainage /flooding 

To summarise we plan to:

• resurface over 55 streets 
• improve more than 20 footways
• repair and inspect 11 structures
• replace hundreds of lighting columns 
• carry out 10 flood relief schemes

In an average year we repair 3318 potholes.

Gateshead Streetworks permit scheme was established in 2020. It has grown from a team of one Streetworks Controller, two Permit Support Officers and one Inspector to three Permit Inspectors and three Permit Support Officers under the supervision of the Streetworks Controller.  

The team assess permits to manage and minimise delays and other impacts on all road users, promote best practice and enhance coordination, collaboration, and cross boundary cooperation across the North East region, particularly in the area covered by the North East Combined Authority. The team actively drive compliance with inspections and issue penalties and fines, in accordance with the legislation, when noncompliance is identified.

It's important that new resurfacing works are not undermined by being repeatedly dug up by utility companies and we use our Streetworks permit powers to manage this.

Key to this is coordination and good working relationships between the council and utility companies with the council being seen to be acting fairly to all parties and having regular coordination meetings.

Operationally we monitor the permit durations and challenge any that seem excessively long as well as seeking to optimise resource allocation from the utility side. We carry out regular street works inspections to make sure if a road has to be dug up it is properly reinstated to appropriate standards with any issues addressed promptly.

We also focus on any defects that may be apparent when the reinstatement has been finished and also at regular prescribed intervals after the reinstatement has been completed.

6.1 Decarbonising maintenance operations

The council has established a carbon reduction group in partnership with Tarmac which has the council's current term maintenance contract. We have begun using warm lay road resurfacing materials (instead of high carbon, hot lay materials) and a new thinner surfacing product with a much-improved finish and greater longevity both of which have much lower (carbon footprint).

The annual carbon reduction from the use of warm lay materials for resurfacing and ultrathin materials equates to some 64 tons of CO2e (the standard measurement of greenhouse gas) in the 2023 to 2024 programme. The aim going forward will be to find greater annual savings to improve on this baseline and to use this information to assist  the decision-making process when it comes to choice of materials, treatments and intervention timing. This work will allow us to develop a new highway decarbonisation policy/strategy in 2025 for highway infrastructure to add to the work already providing carbon reduction benefits with street lighting and traffic signals.

Recent improvements in management of our traffic signals with a new asset management system and inventory is allowing us to target sites for repair on obsolescence and reliability. The conversion of all 180 traffic signal sites from the existing tungsten halogen lighting to LED is now very much a priority with some 50 sites outstanding.

The conversion is expensive, however the benefits in energy and carbon savings as well as reliability are excellent. In 2023 to 2024 a successful bid to central government has provided a grant of over £100,000 to be used on upgrading old equipment. The successful LED conversion programme with our street lighting estate has also provided energy and carbon savings and was a key target in earlier years of the HAMP.

6.2 Network resilience  

A key aim of the Gateshead HAMP is to improve the resilience of the highway network to deal with severe weather events particularly flooding. For the last 2 years we have been using a gulley management software programme to look at the performance of all our 30,000 highway drains. The information is used to identify areas requiring greater attention at sites with known flood risk issues. This information will allow us to develop a strategy to make the network more resilient with resources directed to the areas of greatest need. The same data is collected on culverts and other blockage points to ascertain which screens and entrances need to be cleaned more regularly and in advance of bad weather forecasts.  

Resilience in terms of choosing the correct surfacing materials to last in different areas of Gateshead has already been discussed in section 3.2 similarly carefully monitoring faults and frequent issues relating to traffic signals and street lighting and changing to longer lasting equipment also builds in resilience into the network.

Highway maintenance scheme programme

Highways Asset Management Plan