Local Highway Maintenance Transparency Report 2025 - 2026

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