Issue - meetings

Report by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

19.1     The Contract Manager Highway Infrastructure Services introduced the report. The report provides an update on the strategy set out in 2017 to improve highways drainage. It is a significant area of expenditure which uses £3.2million per annum of capital and revenue funding. The main elements of the strategy are:

·          identifying, prioritising and resolving drainage issues, including dealing with known flooding hot spots;

·          improving our drainage asset knowledge through investigation and encapsulation of historic records and knowledge; and

·          working with partners and local communities to understand and proactively manage drainage together.

19.2     The report sets out how the work to improve highway drainage has been tackled. The Asset Management Team has been learning as work has progressed and invested in new techniques and technology. The strategy and approach is working quite well and has included work in the following areas:

·          The approach to blocked gullies and drain outlets has been changed by using more powerful jetting equipment and camera surveying blockages at same time.

·          Of the 157 flooding hotspots originally identified, 97% will be resolved by end of this year.

·          The fence to fence design approach is now working very well for carriageway investigations and designs.

·          A lot of time and energy has been dedicated to improving the ditch and grip network. This is an area of maintenance that has not received as much attention as it may have needed in the past. This has now been corrected with programmes of ditch reconstruction and the reforming of grips (the channels that run between the edge of the road and the ditch).

·          Work to improve the knowledge and understanding of the drainage network has included digitising all paper based records to help investigations and design. The Asset Team is capturing new information on drainage network through the survey work involved in investigations of flooding hot spots and blocked outlets. The Team is following a best practice approach to information gathering focussing on problem areas. Due to the time and cost that it would take to get a complete understanding of the drainage network, it will take some time to achieve this.

·          The Asset Team is engaging with Borough, District and Parish councils to work on drainage issues such as highway flooding, road sweeping and improving knowledge.

19.3     The Committee noted the scale of improvements outlined in the report and commented on the excellent ditching work that had taken place. In discussion, the Committee outlined that it is sometimes difficult to know where the boundary is between the work of East Sussex Highways and the Asset Management Team, especially in situations where drainage problems may need to be escalated for resolution. The Contract Manager Highway Infrastructure Services responded that for drainage issues the first point of contact should be the Highway Steward or Customer Service Manager. If Councillors are not getting the information they need, then they should raise it with either himselfor the Assistant Director, Operations. Sometimes there is a lot of history behind a particular drainage problem and it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19

Report by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

27.1     The Contracts Manager introduced the report which provides an update on the work being undertaken to improve the effectiveness of the highway drainage network. The report describes three strands of work which targets £3 million of expenditure to improve the drainage infrastructure. Good progress is being made and the Team is building up momentum in dealing with these issues. The report provides details of completed and planned work, covering:

·          Blocked gulley outlets - Around 1,000 of the 2,700 blocked drains identified from routine gulley maintenance programme have been investigated and cleared or remedial action taken.

·          Flooding hot spots - All 270 of the original reported hotspots have been examined leading to the identification of 137 validated flooding hot spots requiring action. A number have been investigated and resolved. Of the remaining 100, 50 are under investigation.

·          Fence to fence design - Known drainage issues are being tackled as part of the surfacing programme (e.g. making sure the existing drainage infrastructure is working and re-profiling road surfacing to improve drainage).

·          Ditch and grip work - Work programmes have been started to re-instate ditches and grips where they need to be re-constructed, and routine maintenance programmes have been put in place. For the work on the ditch network, the county has been divided into four zones.

·          Improving knowledge – Work is continuing to digitise existing paper records and to resolve drainage network ownership issues. This is where problems relate to drainage infrastructure that is the responsibility of others to maintain.

27.2     The Committee asked a number of questions about the work that is being undertaken, which are summarised below. The Contracts Manager clarified that the drainage zones include the urban areas and divide the county into four zones: Zone 1 North West; Zone 2 North East; Zone 3 South West; Zones 4 South East.

Gulley Emptying

27.3     The Committee asked if there is a policy to remove parked cars to get access to blocked gullies. The Contracts Manager explained that in areas where there is a problem, residents are pre-notified of when gulley emptying work is going to take place by placing notices on lampposts. The contractor will return on a second date, but if it is still not possible to complete the work, the locations are recorded. They are then gathered up into a batch and a car lifter is employed to gain access. This is done approximately twice a year. Committee asked if it would be possible to include Councillors in the notification process.

Flooding Hotspots

27.4     The report provides details of the work undertaken on flooding hotspots and gives examples of the issues that are found as a result of investigations. These are typical of the types of work that are needed e.g. collapsed drains requiring excavation and replacement, root encroachment, lining, replacement to increase capacity etc.

Fence to fence approach

27.5     The Fence to Fence approach is tackling highway drainage first as part of projects to tackle other work (e.g. when surfacing is undertaken). The sort of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27

Report by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

7.1 The Contracts Manager (Head of Service, Highways) introduced the report. The report notes the additional funding secured as a result of the Scrutiny Review and updates the action plan which responds to the recommendations of the Review. Investment in drainage protects the structural integrity of the road network and the significant investment in roads that has taken place over recent years.

7.2 The Contracts Manager outlined that the department has made significant progress compared with the position a year ago, but there are some challenges especially where further investigation and surveys are required to solve drainage problems. A programme of work using capital and revenue funding has been devised to deliver changes to the highway drainage network. Work to date has included:

·          Better information derived from routine gulley maintenance operations, including information on individual gulleys.

·          An improvement in the investigation process of drainage issues and better record keeping for drainage incidents.

·          The routine gulley maintenance programme has identified 2,700 blockages, where further investigation work is required. The department will work through these issues over the next 2 years as part of the drainage infrastructure maintenance programme.

·          A ‘fence to fence’ design approach which examines the drainage when carrying out capital programme footway and carriageway works. This approach aims to address drainage issues and known flooding ‘hot spots’ before undertaking any major highways works.

·          There is a programme to carry out maintenance work on 25% of the ditch network each year to improve the condition of the ditch network. However, this has run into some challenges where ditches needed to be reconstructed, or were not found to be located in the position the records indicated they would be in.

·          Opportunities have been taken to improve knowledge of the drainage asset and the department has been working closely with Town and Parish councils. This has also been helpful when working on known drainage problems where it is necessary to identify private landowners.

·          The department is working with District and Borough Councils on new developments and has taken a co-ordinated approach with partners in tackling long standing highway flooding issues.

7.3 The Committee asked if there had been a reduction in revenue and capital funding since the start of the Scrutiny Review into highway drainage. The Contracts Manager replied that there has been a reduction in the revenue budget over the last two years, but the capital programme allocation had been enhanced.

7.4 The Committee enquired if the new highways contract has delivered an improvement in keeping all gulleys clear. The Contracts Manager responded that the new contract has an improved approached to dealing with gulley problems, but the Council may not have seen full benefit of these improvements yet. The Assistant Director, Operations added that there has been an improvement in the efficiency of gulley emptying, achieved by adopting an intelligent approach and moving away from emptying all gulleys on the same frequency. The highways contractor is meeting all the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that have been set.

7.5 The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7