Network North highway maintenance
Network North is an £8.3billion funding commitment by the Department for Transport, made possible by reallocated HS2 funding, that will boost highways maintenance across England over the next 11 years.
Leicester is scheduled to receive over £24m of Network North funding between now and 2033/34, including an additional £830,000 that will be invested in resurfacing more than 25,000 sqm of road surface on two of the city’s busiest arterial traffic routes and most important bus corridors – Narborough Road and Melton Road.
On Narborough Road, the planned works will see the stretch of road between Winchester Avenue and Dumbleton Avenue
The indicative cost of resurfacing this 12,884m2 section of works will be £490,000.
Similar major maintenance will be carried out on Melton Road, between Loughborough Road and Marfitt Street, which will also be fully resurfaced.
The indicative cost of resurfacing this 12,147m2 section of works will be £450,000.
Both sets of works will involve the roads being fully resurfaced with binder course repairs where appropriate, to address cracking, rutting and general wear and tear. Additional benefits will include long-term improvements to the road surface, a reduction in reactive road maintenance costs, and elimination of poor carriageway conditions.
Driver journeys will also be improved, and traffic management aspects of future phased works will be eased.
Innovation in Highway Asset Management
Leicester City Council is in the process of implementing a new Highway Asset Management System (HAMS). New software will allow a greater degree of mobile working for all of our staff and enable us to develop future works programmes determined by networks surveys and degradation parameters that we control.
We are currently surveying all of our city's road using RoadMetrics AI, which will be integrated into our new HAMS. The digital camera surveys will supplement traditional survey data (Scanner) and inform our lifecycle management tool, to better enable the strategic planning of our maintenance funding.
We have already converted 85% of city street lights to dimmable LED lanterns. The remaining lanterns are being replaced at end of life.
Utility works
We run a utility permit scheme, whereby all works promoters are required to submit advanced notices for major works, which enables us to co-ordinate with other utility companies and our own maintenance schemes in order to reduce carriageway openings and network congestion.
In addition, the Network Management team hold quarterly co-ordination traffic management meetings for all utility companies, internal works teams and emergency services. This enables us to co-ordinate planned works as best we can.
We also place Section 58 notices on all planned carriageway maintenance works, to limit disruption and excavations to the new carriageway, for the minimum period.
Capital investment
Total capital investment in the maintenance of city highway networks for recent years has been:
2019-2020
- Total DfT capital grant funding = £2,102,000
- Total amount of capital investment (including both council and DfT grant funding streams) = £2,102,000
- Total amount of revenue spend = £4,070,285
2020-2021
- Total DfT capital grant funding = £7,422,000
- Total amount of capital investment (including both council and DfT grant funding streams) = £7,422,000
- Total amount of revenue spend = £4,267,640
2021-2022
- Total DfT capital grant funding = £3,262,000
- Total amount of capital investment (including both council and DfT grant funding streams) = £3,262,000
- Total amount of revenue spend = £4,010,000
2022-2023
- Total DfT capital grant funding = £3,262,000
- Total amount of capital investment (including both council and DfT grant funding streams) = £3,262,000
- Total amount of revenue spend = £3,867,821
2023-2024
- Total DfT capital grant funding = £3,842,000
- Total amount of capital investment (including both council and DfT grant funding streams) = £3,842,000
- Total amount of revenue spend = £3,838,000
2024-2025
- Total DfT capital grant funding = £3,262,000
- Total amount of capital investment (including both council and DfT grant funding streams) = £3,262,000
- Total amount of revenue spend = £3,805,000
