Planned Highway Maintenance Proposal Insight Summary

Background

From 12 March to 7 May 2025, Hampshire County Council invited residents, partners, and stakeholders to provide their views on options to change and reduce some local services to help the Authority address a £97.6 million budget shortfall for 2025/26.

This included a proposed change to Planned Highway Maintenance. The proposed change was to remove the £4.323 million funding provided each year by Hampshire County Council to supplement Department for Transport (DfT) funding for planned highway maintenance.

Who responded to the proposal?

In total, 1,006 responses were received to this proposal via the consultation response form, of which ten were from organisations and seven were from democratically Elected Representatives.

Responses were received from all parts of the County, ranging from 19 in Rushmoor to 122 in Winchester.

Some key stats about respondents:

870 respondents were users of private motorised transport, whereas 540 were users of public or community transport
581 respondents were users of active transport (walking, wheeling, cycling, scooting etc)

Respondents were invited to add further comments to support their views on this proposal via an open-ended question. This allowed people to expand on impacts they felt the proposed changes would cause and suggest alternative courses of action. 344 respondents left an open text comment in relation to the proposal. All these comments have been shared with the service for consideration.

A further six responses about this proposed change to Planned Highway Maintenance were received through direct correspondence via letter or email (unstructured responses). One of these was from an individual and five were from organisations. These responses have also been shared with the service for consideration and are briefly summarised later in this document.

Levels of agreement with this proposal

35% of respondents expressing a view agreed with the proposal, compared to 53% who disagreed with it. 12% of respondents neither agreed nor disagreed with the proposal.

What was driving disagreement with this proposal?

Some groups of people disagreed with the proposed change more than others:

16–24-year-old respondents were more likely to disagree with the proposed change (82% disagreement)
Those aged 75-84 were also more likely to disagree with the proposed change (64% disagreement)
Those who had heard about the proposal through a news broadcast or website were more likely to disagree (71% disagreement)

The data suggests that the main drivers of disagreement with the proposed change related to:

concerns over the current state of highways, which many believed to be in a bad state of repair; often linked with a view that any reduction in maintenance spend is likely to further degrade the standard of highways
the potential negative impacts including higher costs in the future for highways repair, the cost of fixing damaged vehicles and reduced safety of the highways

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"The reduction of this service will affect everyone using roads and footway[s] in Hampshire, regardless of age or sex etc, reducing investment into planned works seems very short-sighted and will only lead to bigger issues further down the line."

"The highway infrastructure, especially around road surfacing and potholes, is in poor condition and existing funding cannot cope with it. Cutting it further will only exacerbate the issues and make it difficult for people to get around."

What was driving agreement with this proposal?

Some groups of people agreed with the proposed change more than others:

those with household incomes between £80,001 and £90,000 (60% agreement)
those with £70,001 to £80,000 were also more likely to agree with the proposed change (49% agreement)
respondents who identify as possibly neurodivergent (48%)
respondents with children and young people in their household aged 12 to 16 (44% agreement)
those who travel by train (41%)

Agreement with the proposal appeared to be driven by beliefs that:

the offset money provided by the DfT means there will be little negative effect
the proposals will have low or no impact
the proposals will encourage people to use their car less
as long as potholes are still fixed, this proposal is acceptable
if money needs to be saved, then this is an opportunity to do so

Those agreeing with the proposal were also less likely to comment about current issues with the state of the roads.

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"I believe that if the mandatory maintenance is still covered without this supplement, there is no real need to spend the extra money."

"As long as the usual planned pothole and road repairs are dealt with, it would not impact on residents unduly."

Other aspects of the proposed change(s)

Respondents raised some questions about the implementation of the proposal. These included, but were not limited to, how it might be affected by future changes related to Local Government Reorganisation and why money from different pots was considered separately.

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"We have no further comments to make other than to ask if the proposals for devolution in Hampshire will reverse your current thinking on all matters you are consulting on?”

“It doesn't make sense to me as a citizen of this country, as money in the public domain is pretty much the same pot - you're just pouring it into different mugs. If this is about putting pressure back onto central government, fair enough - as long as it doesn't risk the safety of the roads.”

Main impacts of the proposed change

The overall comments provided about this proposal were also analysed to understand what potential impacts the proposal could have if implemented.

138 out of 344 respondents (40%) who chose to provide comments on this proposal mentioned potential impacts of the proposal in their feedback. The most frequent impacts mentioned were:

negative financial implications for the council and/or the public, such as cost of repairs to highways or vehicles (28% of mentions)
concern over safety issues for drivers and cyclists (23% of mentions)
that this will worsen the quality of roads (18% of mentions)
impact on rural areas, relating to higher reliance on cars, quality of road surfaces, and traffic displacement (16% of mentions)
damage to vehicles (14% of mentions)
will create more work in the long run (14% of mentions)
general negative impact on society (13% of mentions)
negative impact on the environment (12% of mentions)
impacts people based on protected characteristics (12%)
negative impact on cyclists/motorcyclists (10% of mentions)
negative impact on disabled/vulnerable individuals (10%)
impact on economy/economic development/businesses (7% of mentions)
negative impact on drivers (6% of mentions)

There were also other impacts mentioned by less than 5% of respondents including:

the proposal will shift costs elsewhere
there will be a negative impact on pedestrians
there will be an impact on travel times
the proposal will have little or no impact
that areas where roads are poorly maintained will be avoided or cut off
an impact on public transport
an impact on emergency services

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"Lack of highway maintenance will result in more accidents to people and various types of vehicles. It could make it more difficult for disabled people to get about."

"To withdraw money away will cause more damage to roads and more claims to HCC for damage to cars thus resulting in paying out more money than it would have cost to fix it."

"It seems to be a very short-termist view that we skimp on roads now only to hedge our bets on increased funding in the future, or be left with a more sizeable repair bill in future, a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul."

"Money from DFT will focus on cities and major roads and rural areas will suffer as a consequence of this proposal."

Impacts on protected characteristics

Respondents were asked in the Response Form which characteristics or issues they felt would be impacted by the proposed change. Respondents were able to select any of the protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010, as well as poverty, rurality, and environmental impacts. 916 people gave a response and of these:

Rurality (39%) – Concern that rural areas will suffer more as they are often neglected when it comes to road maintenance. This impact is exacerbated as rural residents are more dependent on cars due to a lack of local amenities which can be reached on foot or bike and poor alternative transport solutions. There was also concern that rural areas may receive more traffic if main roads become poorly maintained. There were no obvious demographic drivers to selecting this characteristic, with even those in rural areas no more likely to select it than respondents in urban areas.
Environmental impact (35%) – Comments related to the negative carbon impact of the bigger repairs that will eventually be required, the repetitive nature of the reactive repairs taking place in the meantime, increased carbon emissions through congestion, and increased surface water runoff or flooding. There were no obvious demographic drivers to selecting this characteristic.

Other characteristics were mentioned at lower levels:

disability (19% of respondents)
age (16% of respondents)
poverty (13% of respondents)
pregnancy and/or maternity (5% of respondents)
marriage and/or civil partnership (3% of respondents)
sex, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, and gender reassignment (2% of respondents each)

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"If some roads are not in great repair and enhancements are not being made, this may encourage people to find other routes that could include having to go through more rural areas."

"HCC should not lose sight of its carbon neutral targets and not sacrifice long-term climate goals for short-term financial benefits."

Suggested alternative proposals

134 out of 344 respondents (39%) who chose to provide comments on this proposal suggested alternatives to the proposal or suggestions for how the service could be carried out differently.

The most frequently mentioned suggestions were to:

improve how repairs are done (31% of mentions)
increase budget/maintenance instead (16% of mentions)
prioritise planned maintenance over other spending (13% of mentions)
ideas for how to improve or change the use of contractors (12% of mentions)
alternative sources of funding for road repairs (7% of mentions)
organisational efficiencies to fund improvements (6% of mentions)

These, and all other suggestions have been passed to the Directorate for consideration, both in relation to preparing recommendations on this proposal and for managing the service generally.

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"There seems to be a lot of patching of potholes etc and then a year later the same hole is being re-patched. It may be a case of 'do it cheap, do it twice' or poor delivery, money is being wasted which could be used elsewhere within highways."

"Investment in our road infrastructure is what is needed."

Additional comments

263 respondents made a comment that was neither an impact nor a suggested improvement. These comments told us that:

There was existing concern about the state and safety of the roads as they currently are (43% of those who made a comment that was neither an impact nor a suggested improvement). These comments centred around how any decrease in quality would lead to more damage to vehicles and increased claims for damage, which could cost the County Council more in the long run.
There were also comments about the running of the Council and its budget (22% of mentions). These comments covered four themes:

Suggestions to save money elsewhere: reducing pay for senior staff and councillors, removing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion targets, forgetting about sustainability goals, stopping wasting money on unnecessary road schemes, residents paying for or providing some services themselves.
Alternative ways of running the service: better mapping and planning of repairs, cross-referencing reactive and planned work to identify savings, concentrating repairs in one area at a time to achieve efficiencies, using repair companies that provide a higher quality service, ensuring value for money from companies, and checking that work has been undertaken to an acceptable standard.
Alternative funding sources: charging utility companies for repairs that must be undertaken to highways following their work, lobbying government for additional funds, implementing charging schemes for road closures, and introducing penalty clauses for overrunning works by contractors.
There were also suggestions that funding for road maintenance should be increased, not decreased.

Illustrative quotes from respondents

"Roads are already in a very bad state—low-income households are not easily able to find the money to have cars or bikes repaired."

"The highway network is falling apart. To reduce the available budget further will only result in an even further deterioration of the highway and an increase in claims for damages which could be spent on highway maintenance."

"Many services provided by HCC could be provided (or paid for) by the recipients themselves. Only HCC can do Highways Maintenance, so this should take priority over most other budgets."

Unstructured responses

The six unstructured comments received by email or letter during the consultation process echoed the findings of the online consultation responses.

Two comments mentioned potential negative impacts on the quality of roads and the financial implications to motorists.
One comment made a suggestion to lobby Central Government for additional funding and to increase the budget for road maintenance instead.
Six included general comments, of which three were about current issues with the roads and two stated opposition to the proposal.