THE HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2004

The Highway Maintenance Management Plan (HMMP) sets out highway maintenance policies and procedures. The Plan is subject to regular review and a decision was taken on 9 March 2004 for the HMMP to be updated to reflect the changes introduced in the national standard document `Delivering Best Value in Highway Maintenance, A Code of Good Practice' introduced in July 2001. The decision supports Aim 2 of the Corporate Strategy (Stewardship of the environment) by ensuring a systematic and consistent approach is adopted to the management of the highway network.

An important new concept in the national standard document is the adoption of an asset management approach to the management of highways and the framework of the HMMP allows for this change to be accommodated. The format of the HMMP has been retained with modifications to simplify it, making it easier to understand and adapt it for electronic viewing. The key changes for 2004 are:-

(i) a revised maintenance network hierarchy providing a separation between roads, footways and cycletracks, each with a bespoke network hierarchy to reflect the traffic usage on each of these elements.

(ii) revised inspection arrangements to reflect the separation of highway condition assessment and highway safety inspections.

(iii) the introduction of new arrangements to examine all trees annually for potentially dangerous condition as part of a detailed inventory of highway assets

Further work is planned over the next update period to develop an asset management plan and introduce asset valuation and define practical serviceability intervention levels.

Although the status of the new code is advisory, the national standard document and corresponding HMMP is highly influential and it is intended therefore that it be the cornerstone of the County Council's highway maintenance strategy.