Highways surveys

Highways surveys are inspections of our roads and pavements, carried out by a contractor to give us an overview of the general condition of our highways.

Carriageways

The survey of the carriageways is known as a coarse visual inspection (CVI) and is carried out from a slow moving vehicle. It's used to record the presence of defective areas of the carriageway. Conditions are noted every 20 metres and this enables the recording of such defects as cracking, crazing and rutting.

CVI surveys are performed to national standards and in accordance with best practice. They are intended to allow rapid assessment of the network and can assist with the appointment of budgets for future maintenance works.

Footways

Footway maintenance surveys look at the condition of the footways network and record different types of defective areas on a footway.

A footway inventory is recorded as a surface type (tarmac/paving stones/modular/block paving/mixed) with a width and the results are given as a percentage defectiveness. Defects are categorised as being either major or minor by surface type and expressed as an area with a cause of the defect.

View a map of the 2015 to 2016 footway maintenance survey results

Footway maintenance survey map 2015 to 2016

Highway inspectors

Highway inspectors carry out regular inspections of all the roads and footways in the borough to make sure there is free, safe and clearly marked passage. Inspections are carried out from every 2 weeks to once a year, depending on the type of road and how much it is used.

The inspectors will make sure that any dangerous defects on the highway are repaired and pass on reports on the condition of highways to our planned maintenance team.

Inspectors will look for:

• carriageway defects
• footway defects
• defective/redundant street furniture including dirty signs, bollards
• missing/broken seating
• defective road markings
• overgrown hedges, illegal crossings, advertising boards/illegal signs on highway
• obstructions on footway or carriageway
• blocked gullies
• flooding
• statutory undertaker defects
• fly tipping
• fly posting
• weeds
• signing and guarding on all highway works

The inspectors will take action against any person who obstructs or prevents passage along the highway.

Footpaths and bridleways

Highway inspectors will ensure that public rights of way such as footpaths and bridleways are open and safe for use, free from obstruction and clearly marked. They are responsible for checking that works requested of owners/occupiers of land (for example the repair of stiles and clearance of crops) have been carried out to a suitable standard.

Highway management

Local Highways Maintenance Funding - Budget 2018

In November 2018 The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the Budget 2018, the government was allocating £420 million in the 2018/19 financial year for local highways maintenance. The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham was allocated £420,000 by the Department for Transport (DfT) for local highways maintenance to help repair damage to the local road network in the 2018/19 financial year.

The grant was used to complement the current carriageway and footway maintenance work carried out by the borough resulting in a greater number of repairs being carried out than might otherwise have been possible.

A programme of repairs was produced and this money was used to address current potholes in road surfaces, as well as to help prevent others from forming. This repair programme was completed by the end of March 2019. The programme drawn up was based on highway inspector local knowledge. This information helps identify where localised defects are located and depending on the size and nature of the defect present, a remedial treatment will be carried out.