Additional road maintenance funding.
The London Borough of Bromley has been allocated £455,000 in both 2023/24 and 2024/25 for additional road maintenance following the reallocation of HS2 funding across the country. As London’s largest borough, with a road network equivalent of driving to Zurich in Switzerland, we also received the largest allocation of any London highway authority.
Councillor Nicholas Bennett, Executive Councillor for Transport, Highways and Road Safety said, “This is welcome news, particularly as we have already seen a further deterioration in our roads this winter, following the torrential rain of the past few weeks, especially following last winter's combination of rain and ice”.
In recent years Bromley Council has spent £1.4m per annum keeping our roads and footpaths in a safe condition, with an additional £2.5m being spent each year on planned resurfacing, predominantly on our non-principal roads.
With funding to maintain London’s principal ‘A’ roads reduced since 2018 road conditions have continued to deteriorate. As these roads carry the most traffic this new funding will be used to improve our principal roads across the borough. As well as resurfacing the worst sections of road this will allow us to take a more proactive approach in repairing smaller areas, rather than waiting for potholes to appear.
Bromley Council has already undertaken a trial of a JCB 'Pothole Pro’ machine, which dramatically cuts the time taken to dig a trench to repair a road surface damaged by potholes.
Councillor Nicholas Bennett said, “We’re consistently looking for new, more productive ways of working, which reduce the time road space is out of use, delaying traffic and costing the council taxpayer money. Road repairs are expensive, labour intensive and time consuming and new ways of working are our top priority. The cost of the machine is obviously part of the economic equation, but the trial looks promising”.
Being the busiest roads in the borough we also need to ensure that planned works by utility companies on our principal roads are co-ordinated, including our own repairs. Bromley’s Streetworks Team will use the council’s powers under the London Permit Scheme to make sure that all utility works are completed beforehand to avoid digging up newly laid road surfaces.
During the last year the council has used the Vaisala RoadAI survey system, which utilises artificial intelligence to identify those roads in the worst condition in the borough. As well as localised repairs across the principal road network, the worst sections of the following roads will be resurfaced during the next six months using the new funding;
- Bickley Road, Bickley
- Croydon Road, Beckenham
- Crystal Palace Parade, Penge
- High Street, Chislehurst
- Orpington War memorial, Orpington
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For media enquiries, please contact Andrew Rogers, Head of Public Affairs, on 020 8461 7670 or email Andrew.Rogers@bromley.gov.uk.