Somerset Council Pledges £5m to Tackle ‘High-Visibility’ Road Problems Across County
Major maintenance push to clear drains, cut back vegetation and refresh road markings in response to residents’ concerns
Somerset Council has committed to spending £5m over the next three years to solving “high-visibility” problems on the county’s road network.
The council’s executive committee approved proposals on April 1 to carry out an “enhanced programme” of additional maintenance on Somerset’s roads, including clearing gullies, trimming back vegetation, replacing broken signs and repainting road markings.
The council intends to spend £2m on these improvements within the current financial year, with a further £3m being built into the coming years’ budgets.
This investment supersedes a commitment made by the Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) to spend £350,000 on gully clearing as part of its own programme – with this funding expected to be reallocated in the coming months.
Councillor Richard Wilkins, portfolio holder for transport and waste services, spoke about the additional funding when the executive committee met in Taunton on April 1.
He said: “This is about backing up what we hear from residents time and time again: that while safety must always come first, the everyday, visible condition of our roads, pavements and pathways really matters to people.
“We’re proposing additional funding to tackle these high-visibility issues that frustrate our communities – faded road markings, damage to signs, overgrown footways and blocked drains.
“By taking a task-force approach, we can respond more quickly and flexibly to make a visible difference on the ground, and to show clearly that we’re listening and acting on what matters to people locally.”
Of the £2m being allocated for work in the current financial year, £1m will come from an underspend in last year’s budget, with the other £1m coming from an allocation in the current budget, which was approved by the full council in February.
While the grass cutting and vegetation improvements will be carried out in house, gully clearing and road markings on A- and B-road will be delivered through Keir under its current maintenance contract.
Some of the funding can also be used for clearing up litter and removing graffiti, with the wishes of parish and town councils being taken into account.
Mike O’Dowd-Jones, the council’s service director for infrastructure and transport, added: “We’re currently funded to focus mainly on safety-critical issues, but this funding will enable us to go further.
“We’ve developed a specific programme of additional gully emptying, focussed on the areas most at the risk of flooding.
“We’re aiming to be quite flexible in the use of these resources to try and tackle these important issues.”
Around 65,000 additional gullies will be cleared over the next 12 months, with a focus on parts of the county which are most vulnerable to a 1-in-100-year flood event.
Councillor Mike Rigby, portfolio holder for economic development, planning and assets, said: “This is a really positive response to the kind of commentary that I think as councillors we all get from the public about the public highway network and the public realm.
“We’ve spent a lot of money over the years on active travel routes, and that doesn’t count for much if they very quickly become obstructed by hedges and verges.”
In addition to committing this new funding, the council has pledged to improve its public reporting system, making it easier for residents to raise issues in the first place.
Councillor Sarah Wakefield, portfolio holder for adults’ services, housing and homelessness, said this same pro-activity should be applied to repairing the remaining potholes on Somerset’s roads.
She said: “Our roads are a better than some others, if you drive around the country.
“Is there any suggestion that we can do anything about the ‘pothole next to the pothole’ question?
“People are cross about a pothole being done and the one next door not being done because ‘it’s not quite big enough yet, but it will be next week’.”
Mr Wilkins replied: “This funding will not relate to potholes, but we look very carefully about how we fix our potholes.
“As you’ve acknowledged, we are comparatively not as bad in this situation as other councils, and we continually monitor best practice to see what works best on the ground.”
Under a new scoring system introduced by the Department for Transport (DfT) in January, the council ranked 26th out of 153 local authorities, with an overall ‘amber’ rating for how well it was spending allocated road maintenance funding.