1.6 Hampshire has 254 parishes and a road network of 8,500 kilometres. 1.7 At present there are 27 routine maintenance gangs operating across four Hampshire Highways areas. Of those, 17 Local Highway Engineers (LHEs) with 17 gangs could be considered as operating in solely rural areas and dealing with parishes. This gives an average of just over 14 parishes per gang. The routine gangs are managed by the LHEs and typical works undertaken by the routine gangs are listed: (i) small pothole repairs; (ii) minor drainage works (grip digging and gully dig-outs, rodding, culvert cleaning, etc); (iii) hedge trimming and sign cleaning; (iv) general minor works (individual kerb and gully replacements); (v) minor traffic management works following incidents; and (vi) providing a quick response to local flooding incidents.
1.8 Parishes in Hampshire are encouraged to have a parish contact for highway matters the `Parish Highway Coordinator', providing information to, and communicating with, the local Highway engineer. In some parishes, this role is carried out to a certain extent by the parish clerk or chairman. At present, contact between local Highway Supervisors and their parishes varies from regular close contact to little or no contact to all. 1.9 A number of parish and town councils in Hampshire already employ their own staff, some of whom are used to assist with highway related works. Hampshire is very supportive of this initiative and assist with advice and training if requested. 2) Experience of Other County Councils 2.1 Two counties were compared to Hampshire County Council's delivery of the service. 2.2 In the first example 20 Parish Stewards operate across the county, each with their own `specialist' Land Rover. The Stewards work alone and are not required to call into the Depot each day unless it is more convenient for them. Vehicles are taken home. 2.3 Each Parish is asked to provide a `parish representative' to liaise with the Area Offices over routine maintenance issues. Area Office Managers are the link with parish representatives. The Office Manager collects details of the works requested and hands them to the technician/engineer who is the link with the Parish Stewards. 2.4 The technician/engineer collates the parish representative's requests with other reported requests for work from members of the public and produces folders with a work list for each of the stewards . This is then given to the Parish Steward a few days before the visit to the parish which avoids wasting time calling into Depots first to collect the day's work. This gives more productive time on the ground. 2.5 A programme is drawn up each quarter indicating when a Steward will be in a particular parish. This varies between three to four days a month in large parishes to one day a month in smaller parishes. On average, visits usually last one or two days. The programme is sent out in advance and nominated parish representatives are asked to provide a list of work they would like done by the Steward two weeks in advance of the visit. 2.6 Stewards often meet the parish representative at the start of their working day to confirm work to be done. Stewards are not programmed in for Fridays. These are float days which enable Stewards to go back to unfinished work in other areas and are seen by the areas as providing useful free days to attend to `urgent member issues'. 2.7 Stewards are used for emergencies and winter call-outs. Parishes are made aware that their Steward may be called away. In some instances work is then picked up on a Saturday or on the Friday float. 2.8 Once budgets and programmes are known a Members' Pack is produced annually at the start of the financial year which lists: (i) facts and figures about the parish areas; (ii) road structures and schemes done in the last financial year; (iii) road and structures schemes proposed for the coming year. The Members' Pack is sent to Members, parishes and placed on the website.
2.9 Approximately 30% of parishes (76) actively participated in the initiative, 45% (114) need to be regularly encouraged and reminded of the scheme, and the remaining 25% (65) do not participate. 2.10 The second model investigated operates with one rural area, although it is divided into East and West. Each depot has two reactive maintenance teams. 2.11 The scheme is run in conjunction with the parishes and has operated for the past few years. Currently there are two gangs operating the initiative (one East and one West) consisting of two men and a van. Contractor vehicles carry appropriate tools which can differ from those on normal maintenance vehicles. Take-up has been approximately 70% of the parishes. 2.12 In February letters are sent out to parishes (Clerks) asking for their work lists. Works typically include clearing ditches/drains, cleaning signs and bollards and repairing timber seats and bus shelters. If materials go beyond the norm, eg stains, the parish pays for them. 2.13 The Maintenance Teams visit parishes three to four days a year but this varies depending upon workload (not all parishes have taken up the scheme). Teams often return more than this. Visits are programmed by the Cyclic Manager and start with the team meeting the Clerk at the start of the work. 2.14 Other maintenance works are undertaken through works ordered through the highway contract and cyclic teams.
3) Hampshire's Position Communications 3.1 There is a greater demand for highway maintenance service delivery over recent years. Coupled with this, the service the County Council delivers is being scrutinised more by parishes and the public alike and satisfaction can be increased by delivering the service with more involvement from stakeholders and customers. 3.2 It is worth noting that the parishes have played an important part in the past with highway maintenance. Parishes that are proactive, have and still do, greatly assist the County in reporting faults, issuing notices, disseminating and collecting information, eg issuing encroachment notices, implementing flood wardens, etc. As a County, their work is valued and the self-help they have demonstrated. It would be worthwhile to continue to build on the working relationships that have been built up over the years. 3.3 The volume of service requests from the public, parishes and Members has increased over the years. The introduction of Hantsdirect has seen a further increase in volume. Hence, maintenance works need to be prioritised and the County Council has not been able to deliver everything requested by the parishes. 3.4 From the visits to other County Councils it is clear that neither of the Authorities has actually reintroduced a parish lengthsman in its true form - that is a dedicated resource to a single parish which is controlled and directed by the parish. 3.5 The present arrangements in Hampshire reflect many of the principles adopted by other counties. In general, budgets and resources are not directly devolved to the parishes to undertake routine work. In all cases the resources of the contractor were directed by Council staff and the scope of the work undertaken is similar to that carried out by routine gangs in Hampshire. It is the local highway engineer who directs, organises and prioritises the workload of the contractor's gangs.
3.6 Of the two visits undertaken, it was evident that Hampshire's present arrangements with parishes for routine highway maintenance offers a better resource level than others. 3.7 The costs of routine gangs per individual operative is similar across all three counties at approximately £50,000 per operative per year. However, whilst the average number of parishes per operative is lower in Hampshire, the length of the road network covered by each operative in Hampshire is 20% greater than the Wiltshire model. 3.8 The success or otherwise of the schemes depended upon the `personal skills and characteristics' of the operatives and their ability in delivering a customer focused service. Both Authorities suggested their schemes had productivity problems. Service Issues 3.9 Hampshire delivers its maintenance work through the Term Highways Contractor. To devolve work to parishes and extract it from the contract would incur the possibility of compensation events on the County by the contractor for loss of work. If work is taken from the contract the `core workload' required to ensure the correct numbers of HGV drivers are employed on other activities throughout the year in order to deliver the winter maintenance service may be at risk. 3.10 It would be possible to try and allocate days to parishes from existing routine gangs. However, this would likely have a detrimental effect on delivery. Local highway engineers are on a daily basis receiving requests for work and reprioritising demands. Their workload is such that the routine gangs are essentially deployed on a reactive, almost daily basis. The effect of using the routine gangs resource in this way would cause either lack of flexibility to deploy routine gangs to deal with the daily priorities, or if the resource is used flexibly to attend to changing priorities, the certainty of the gang being in a parish on a given day would be compromised. 3.11 Setting up fixed days of work for the parishes may raise expectations but may be worth exploring if a limited additional resource could be sourced. 3.12 One approach would be to allocate a sum of say £1,000 per parish to directly employ a community `parish highway resource' to undertake low level routine jobs collectively in a number of parishes. This approach would likely increase perception of the service and give parishes some `control' over the work done in their parish. It would also support the approach of `self help' that some parishes already display. An annual programme of visits to the parish could be set each year so that parishes were aware of when the resource was available to them. 3.13 Alternatively a number of additional resource days could be sourced from the term highway contractor and a dedicated team allocated to the parishes for minor routine work. 3.14 Fundamentally the existing system adopted by Hampshire is sound and the building blocks are in place to develop a greater liaison and working relationship with the parishes. It is therefore proposed that existing arrangements are maintained but that arrangements are put in place to trial a parish highway resource for a 12 month period so that a proper value for money assessment can be made of adding an additional local resource. 4) Proposals for a Trial 4.1 There is a strong desire by parishes to return to previous arrangements and, whilst that may not be achievable due to economics, it is suggested that a trial based on the principle of a dedicated resource for parishes is trialled.
4.2 An appropriate trial area would ideally encompass a number of parishes in the rural community. The local highway engineers in Area East on average cover a greater number of parishes and road mileage in the rural areas that other Areas. This is particularly the case in the Winchester rural areas where over the last six to nine months there has been a greater level of dissatisfaction. It is therefore recommended that the suggested trial area covers some of the Meon Valley parishes. 4.3 An allocation of £1,000 per parish be awarded (£10,000 in total) to pass on to a lead parish to engage a `parish highway resource', subject to any appropriate terms and conditions. Trial Option 2 4.4 £10,000 be allocated to trial a dedicated parish lengthsman resource from the Highway contractor. Ten parishes be allocated this resource for a set number of days and visits programmed for the year in advance. 4.5 The type of work carried out by the lengthsmen in both trial options could typically include; minor drainage work (grip digging, clearing detritus around drains), bollard and sign cleaning (non illuminated signs), cutting back vegetation encroachment, siding out of footways, strimming, clearing litter. 4.6 The parishes work together to produce a programme of visits through the year to each parish. Each parish would provide a lead liaison (possibly the parish coordinator) to liaise with this resource. 4.7 Work would be prioritised in advance through the parish coordinator and the local highway engineer advised to avoid duplication with officer works issued through the contract. 4.8 The trials be conducted for one year and an assessment be reported back to the Executive Member for Environment for consideration of expanding the resource county-wide.
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