Local highways maintenance transparency report

Buckinghamshire Highways allocates funding across a range of maintenance activities to ensure the road network is well-maintained. The table below provides a breakdown of how this funding has been distributed between capital and revenue spending over the past five years, as well as the proportion invested in preventative and reactive maintenance.

Capital funding is used for long-term improvements and renewal of highway assets. These are typically larger, planned works that extend the life of the asset.

Examples include:

• major resurfacing, surface treatment or reconstruction of roads and footways
• replacement of street lighting columns
• structural repairs to bridges and retaining walls
• upgrades to existing drainage systems
• upgrades to traffic signals and signage
• road safety improvement schemes
• large-scale patching and plane and patching

Revenue funding, on the other hand, typically covers day-to-day maintenance and operational costs. These are generally smaller-scale or routine activities.

Examples include:

• routine and safety inspections
• gully cleaning and drainage maintenance
• grass cutting and tree maintenance
• street lighting and traffic signals repairs (for example bulb replacements) and energy costs
• routine maintenance of structures including inspections and minor works
• winter service operations (for example gritting and snow clearance)
• pothole repairs
• emergency and out of hours service
• maintenance of public rights of way
• cleaning and maintenance of signs and road markings

Buckinghamshire Council’s plan is to continue to invest in capital maintenance to improve roads, footways, and related highway assets.

Our capital spend is typically split according to the following proportions:

• 50% will be used to resurface roads – this includes laying new surfaces on roads that are worn out and potholing, as well as early intervention maintenance, such as surface dressing and micro surfacing
• 14% will be used for “plane and patch” work – this is smaller, targeted repairs to fix groups of potholes and damaged sections of road
• 9% will be used to maintain bridges, ensuring they stay safe and functional
• 8% is set aside for rebuilding roads that are in very poor condition
• 7% will be used to improve drainage systems, helping to prevent flooding and water damage to roads and properties
• 5% is for fixing footways (pavements), making them safer for pedestrians
• 4% will go toward road safety improvements, like better signage or safer junctions and pedestrian crossing points
• 3% is for repairing and replacing streetlights and traffic signals, keeping roads well-lit and safe at night

Historically the budgets allocated each year have typically allowed us to:

• complete approximately 200 carriageway schemes relaying 120km of road surface
• replace over 400 streetlights plus many other minor repairs
• implement around 11 major capital drainage improvement schemes
• carry out approximately 10km of footway reconstruction

The table above illustrates the proportion of the budget allocated to preventative maintenance or reactive maintenance in recent years. The value for reactive maintenance includes activities where the repairs or activities are as a response to issues which are unplanned (for example, repairing a pothole which has been reported, gritting our roads in periods of bad weather or responding to incidents on the network). Activities which are planned and can prevent the need for a reactive response are included in preventative maintenance. This might include carriageway surfacing or large scale patching, routine activities such as gulley emptying and fixed costs such as streetlighting energy.

Part of our capital budgets are also spent on early intervention maintenance where we can act before a road has failed. This might include activities such as surface dressing a road. We have consistently invested around £7 million annually in this form of maintenance, reflecting its commitment to prolonging the life of the network and reducing the need for more costly repairs in the future.

One of the biggest concerns road users express within stakeholder satisfaction surveys, often relates to potholes. Buckinghamshire Highways undertakes both preventative and reactive maintenance interventions annually to tackle pothole damage. Further information on how we identify and define potholes is given in our Highway Inspection Policy.

We also carry out spray injection patching to treat a number of road defects. The table below shows the number of defects repaired each year using this treatment. Note that these are in addition to figures in the table above. The council is pleased to see the number of potholes reducing in 2024/25 which, although in part are due to less severe weather, is also a result of increased levels of investment in our roads and an increased emphasis on preventative maintenance.