Road and footways

As the Highway Authority, our aim is to keep the highway network, which includes roads, footways and cycle paths in a safe and accessible condition for all users.

To achieve this, we carry out regular safety inspections by a team of qualified inspectors in line with our Highway Safety Inspection Policy and Code of Practice. This is provided as guidance and standards for our inspectors to use when undertaking safety inspections:

Our Code of Practice is a risk based approach and it helps to ensure consistency when identifying defects on nearly 2300 kilometres of road, over 2450 kilometres of footway (pavements), and more than 200 kilometres of cycle paths.

We manage our inspections, and any repair works according to the frequencies, standards and response times set out in our Code of Practice. This allows us to maintain the highway network to a reasonable standard, proportionate with available funding, and successfully defend against most third-party insurance claims for damage or injury.

We must undertake any identified repairs until carriageway treatments, patching or resurfacing can be considered based its condition, priority, and funding allocation. We use an asset management approach to how schemes are identified for funding as part of our capital improvement programme. We are currently managing a decline in the condition of the highway network and the demands on our highway maintenance budget far outpaces the funding available to address them, so difficult choices do need to be made about which roads are treated and when.

How we prioritise