Time to get road repairs out of a hole

Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council are calling for action not words in repairing Surrey's roads.

Cllr Stephen Cooksey, the Liberal Democrat Transportation Spokesperson has tabled a written question to today's meeting of the County Council regarding failings in the new highways maintenance contract.

Cllr Cooksey said:

"The answer from the Conservative Cabinet Member raises as many issues as it answers.

"Whilst it is encouraging that the contractor is penalised for failing to achieve contract targets, this is not getting Surrey's roads repaired. After this week's downfall of snow there will a fresh new set of potholes and cracks that need repairing. With a roads maintenance backlog of £400million, Surrey's residents want to see Surrey's roads being fixed, not just empty promises.

"The new contract seems to have brought welcome improvement to the implementation of major schemes but has left much to be desired with regard to the smaller repair and replacement jobs that are so important in local communities. Residents have been kept waiting for months, for example, for the replacement of signs and bollards or grate and manhole covers regardless of the pressures from local members and County highways officers. Emergency repairs are not followed through with permanent repairs, residents are not given advance notice of works and members are unable to obtain information about local schedules.

"The Council has received a somewhat complacent, 'everything will be alright' response from the Cabinet member which does not instil confidence that sufficient pressure is being applied to achieve the rapid improvement that is necessary.

"The fact that the present arrangements might be an improvement on the appalling situation that was allowed to develop with the previous contract is of little comfort. We will continue to press the Council to ensure that the situation is improved and the promised level of service attained."

Stephen Cooksey's question to today's meeting of Surrey County Council and the reply are:

CABINET MEMBER FOR TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT

(1) MR STEPHEN COOKSEY (DORKING AND THE HOLMWOODS) TO ASK:

On 12 January the Environment and Transport Select Committee received a report on the performance of the newly appointed highways maintenance contractors. While it was clear the new contract is working better than the old one a number of issues were raised including:

• Failure to deliver follow up permanent repairs to emergency repairs within the stipulated 28 days.
• IT and operational problems preventing the contractor achieving the productivity required to deliver contract response timescales for safety repairs.
• The contractor not having sufficient resources to meet surface protection work demands.
• Problems with road marking sub contractors.
• Carriageways not being swept of stones after surface protection within agreed timescales.
• Residents and businesses being given advance notice of works in their road too late or too early.
• Failure to promptly answer councillor queries.

What actions will the Cabinet Member be taking to ensure Surrey residents and businesses receive the standard of road maintenance that they pay for?

Reply:

The report presented to the Environment and Transport Select Committee did identify a number of areas where May Gurney had not achieved the required level of performance. Two key issues were identified in the report:

1) Repair of Safety Defects - It was anticipated that there would be on average 30,000 safety defects to repair each year, however in the 6 month period between April and October, May Gurney repaired 20,000 safety defects, partly due to a large backlog of defects inherited from the previous contract, partly caused by the bad winter. In spite of this higher than expected defect level May Gurney achieved an average of 85% repaired within the required timescale, and October's performance confirms an average 95% success rate. This is steadily improving, and we are confident that May Gurney will achieve the required targets before April 2012.

2) Surface Dressing/Microsurfacing - May Gurney did not effectively plan and resource the surface treatment programme, and as a consequence residents were not always advised of works and May Gurney could not secure necessary resources to deliver the full programme in 2011/2012. We have now addressed the issues that caused these problems, which included a national equipment shortage and Surrey not producing the Capital programme until March, 3 months late. We are confident with the better pre-planning May Gurney will deliver the expected performance for 12/13.

We have learned our lessons from the SHiP Contracts, and there are two key mechanisms contained in the new contract to ensure May Gurney are focussed on resolving these issues. These are:

1) May Gurney are paid a fixed lump sum for repairing all safety defects. This means that the additional resources that have been brought in to deal with the increased number of safety defects are at their expense.

2) May Gurney's profit is directly linked to their performance, and therefore deductions have been made from their profit to reflect the actual levels of performance achieved.

These two features ensure that Surrey only pays for the level of service it receives, and also provides a strong incentive for May Gurney to achieve the required performance and productivity levels.

The mobilisation of a new contract is always a difficult and challenging time, and May Gurney have faced some real challenges, including problems with IT systems and managing the transfer of staff from the previous contracts. However, the quality of the work is noticeably better than the previous contracts and performance continues to improve. We will work with May Gurney to ensure they achieve the required performance standards, particularly in the areas identified above.

Information on the performance of the highways contract is now published on the Council's website.