Buckinghamshire Highways Resilient Network Plan 2025
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is the first stage in building resilience, enabling the targeting of time and resources where they will return the greatest benefits. In developing the Resilient Network, Buckinghamshire Highways have utilised several sources of risk information, as detailed in this section, to assess what types of risks may impact the highway network and what kinds of disruption could result.
National Risk Assessments
There are a number of national risk assessments which provide guidance for more localised assessments, including:
National Risk Register 2025 - GOV.UK
Transport hazard summaries - GOV.UK
Community Risk Register
The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) places a legal duty on the wide range of responders. Their job is to carry out risk assessments and maintain them in a Community Risk Register. This ensures that planning and other work is carried out in proportion to the risk.
The Thames Valley Community Risk Register is a publicly available document which highlights potential hazards in our area. It has been prepared in line with statutory national guidance on emergency preparedness and we use it when considering risks to the highway network. The top community risks are:
- Flooding
- Severe Weather
- Fuel Loss
- Loss of Utilities, Essential goods and Services
- Pandemic
- Animal Disease
- Environmental Pollution and Industrial Accidents
- Major Fire
- Cyber Crime
- Chemical and Nuclear
Climate risk
The wider council recognises that climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of weather-related hazards and has therefore carried out climate change risk assessments with regards to the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2022. Buckinghamshire Highways acts in accordance with wider plans including:
- Flood risk strategies, plans and assessments, which outline the responsibilities of Buckinghamshire Highways in maintaining the drainage system, developing capital schemes to alleviate flooding, road closure and flood emergency planning and maintaining supplies of appropriate flood mitigation equipment.
- The 2025 Summer Readiness and Response Framework, which ensures a coordinated approach to summer hazards such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires.
- The Council Emergency Response Arrangements (CERA) and Incident Management Process (IMP), which provides the structure for an effective and coordinated tactical/operational response to a disruptive incident or emergency either externally or internally to the Council.
To better understand where the network is most vulnerable, Buckinghamshire Highways analyses data from historic severe weather events, callouts, reports, and complaints. For example, using data-driven solutions, we are identifying and mapping prominent flood hotspots across our network based upon historic flood callouts and utilising this information to develop drainage improvement plans and a prioritised register of drainage maintenance and improvements, such as clearing gullies and ditches or upgrading drainage systems.