Update from Transport for Bucks

Latest news from Transport for Bucks:

 Multi-million pound road improvements scheme launched

Buckinghamshire County Council has announced this week (Tuesday March 22) a spend of £11 million in the coming year on surfacing work on over 50 miles of roads and pavements across the county.

It's part of the Council's £15.9m package of investment in road improvements in 2017/18, and is in addition to nearly £9m on routine maintenance - pothole filling, safety fencing, gulley emptying, street lighting - by Transport for Buckinghamshire (TfB).

This brings to around £110m the amount the County Council has invested since 2011 on road surfacing to improve, maintain, and prolong the life and condition of Buckinghamshire's network.

The work identified for 2017-18 continues this rolling programme of priority work, and similar programmes are planned for future years.
More than 100 roads in Buckinghamshire will be surfaced in 2017-18, and preparatory work is due to start in early April followed by the main surfacing treatments from May onwards.

The list of roads, to be finalised by the end of March, is a combination of surfaces needing priority treatment through condition testing, and roads chosen by local councillors under the guidance of TfB engineers.

Mark Kemp, Director of Growth, Strategy and Highways at the council said:

"What we don't do with that sort of money is just go round filling in individual potholes. We do do some of that, but a lot of it is spent on more proactive work patching up a range of areas."

"This is prioritised by the condition of the ground underneath the road, how well the road is performing and how busy it is."

Some of the questions BCC ask when deciding which roads take priority are:

• How many people are affected by that road?

• What is the volume of traffic on it?

• What are the types of traffic travelling on that road?.

• Is it in a cycle lane?

• Are the potholes in a place where people are likely to hit them?

The council also grade road conditions so they can be proactive in doing maintenance work. Mark added:

"For the overall condition of the road, we grade it green, amber or red. What we try and do is spend money on roads in the amber area that are heading towards the red. This is because we can then spread the money much further spending it on those roads, instead of doing a total reconstruction of them."