Local highways maintenance transparency report

Overall strategy

Our target is to provide an asset maintenance service that delivers the council’s aims and objectives through a risk-based and evidence-backed strategy. The asset management framework focuses on a long-term vision for the highway assets and is based on the Highways Code of Practice: Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure (2016) and industry best practice, in coordination with different forums, such as LoHEG and the South London Highway Asset Management Consortium. The framework is based on the following:

• Establish an inventory of all assets managed by the council, recorded in asset management systems.
• Set a level of service and a priority for each asset by building a network hierarchy, in line with guidance from the London Technical Advisors Group (LoTAG). The hierarchy considers levels of usage, nearby emergency services, schools and other traffic generators. Each carriageway and footway section is assigned a hierarchy level which is reviewed periodically to reflect changing factors.
• Assess the current condition of each asset via routine safety inspections and condition surveys. For the past 4 years, carriageway condition surveys have been carried out with the help of AI models, trained to identify severity and extent of different defects observed on the roads.  
• Devise an optimised plan to maximise the asset value, using the most cost-effective method possible following a value engineering exercise.

Maintenance activities are broken down into three categories: reactive, preventative (planned) and routine maintenance.

Reactive maintenance ensures serviceability and safety of the assets and consist of localised repairs such as isolated patching works or pothole infills. Repairs are carried out following a well-documented safety inspection protocol:

• The frequency of safety inspections is determined by the road hierarchy ensuring that the roads with the highest risk are adequately inspected, and roads with lower risk are not inspected unnecessarily.
• Inspectors identify defects through the routine safety inspections or ad-hoc inspections following a report or claim by members of the public and raise a request for a repair.
• The response time for the request depends on the severity and the extent of the defect which define the risk it poses on the public safety.

Our planned works programmes are derived from priority lists with scoring that considers the following:

• Condition Data:  Our AI-led surveys provide a consistent and objective view of the highway network, and we process the data to give each section a condition score.
• Hierarchy: We give weighting to roads with a higher hierarchy to reflect the associated risks
• Reactive Works: We assign a higher score to roads where more reactive repairs have taken place to prevent more defects from forming.
• Public Claims/Requests: We also take into account the public and councillors' claims and requests to ensure that we are providing benefit to the community.

Routine maintenance consists of periodic activities aimed at keeping the highways safe and preserving the condition of the assets, such as gully cleansing or vegetation management.

Our plans for 2025/2026

During this financial year 2025/26, we plan on resurfacing 9 miles (14.53 km) of carriageway on non-principal roads and 2.8 miles (4.5 km) of principal roads. Town centres, bus routes and access to emergency services and schools will improve thanks to the planned works.

Out of our total highways budget for this financial year, we plan to spend 54 per cent on planned maintenance works, which will contribute to the renewals of our highway assets, uplifting our network and keeping our communities connected. While we aim to prioritise capital expenditure, we have a statutory duty under the Highways Act (1980) to keep the highway safe and accessible to the public. This means we will have to respond to defects on our network when they appear. The remaining 46 per cent of our budget will be allocated to respond to these defects and our day-to-day activities to keep our network running. As part of this, we expect to fix between 3,000 and 4,000 potholes this year based on historical trends.

Street works

We minimise disruption caused by the maintenance works by increasing collaboration between different departments undertaking works on our streets.

We hold quarterly coordination meetings with a range of key stakeholders, including utility companies, our highway contractors and developers. These meetings are vital for discussing upcoming major projects, planned maintenance, and local events that may impact the road and footway network. From these coordination meetings, resurfacing works are then brought forward or pushed back, depending on the outcome of these meetings.

We operate a permit scheme, where utility companies and contractors must apply for a permit before carrying out any works. The permits are granted with conditions to control timing, duration, location and methods used. This helps avoid clashing roadworks and limits unnecessary disruption.

We are also looking to implement lane rental schemes, in line with the overall London strategy to reduce roadworks during sensitive periods. We will charge utility companies and other contractors daily fees for occupying the road space, encouraging them to work outside of peak hours and complete works faster.

Climate Change, resilience and adaptation

Climate change is affecting every aspect of our daily lives, including our highway assets. Bromley Council have made a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon as a council by 2027, in line with the London leading target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2029.

In recent years, climate change has caused harsher winters and warmer summers, with increased short, extreme rainfall events as opposed to prolonged periods of moderate rain. Roads in poor condition are susceptible to further deterioration through water ingress that particularly weakens the layers underneath the surface, compromising the structural integrity of the road. Overall resurfacing is therefore more effective than patching small areas, to prevent water seeping through the surface.

Extreme high temperatures can cause the asphalt to melt, creating more damage on the road surface. Our teams are ready to deal with each situation in the appropriate manner to avoid further deterioration.

We have put in place an Operational Winter Service Plan, to ensure that safe passage along a highway is not endangered by snow or ice, so far as is reasonably practicable, in line with Section 111 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2013 and the Code (2016). This means that not every road can be gritted, but the council follows a risk-based approach to treating vital roads and keeping access to essential services.

We also routinely maintain drainage assets based on a prioritisation list that reflect the location and function of the asset. As a Lead Local Flooding Authority (LLFA), we are responsible for managing local flood risks. We identify hotspots and prioritise drainage assets around them for treatment to alleviate the risks of increasingly frequent heavy rainfall events. To help address these challenges, we are incorporating Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) where appropriate, to better manage surface water on our roads and to reduce strain on existing drainage infrastructure. We also remain committed to reduce carbon emissions within our operations. Our contractors are trialling innovative alternative resurfacing treatments with a lower carbon intensity. We have converted majority of the highway lamp columns to LED which has reduced the energy consumption said assets by 50 per cent.