Today (Tuesday, 14 October), councillors at the Highways and Transport Committee heard about the changes the council has made to Highways Maintenance, which have delivered improvements over the past year.
In June, Cambridgeshire County Council responded to a request by the Department for Transport (DfT) for local highway authorities to produce detailed transparency reports on maintenance activities, to secure additional funding.
Key highlights from the report show:
- Since 2023/24, the amount of capital funding we spend on highway maintenance has increased by £35m, from £24m to £59m.
- The Council has allocated more than £73m for highways maintenance in 2025/26 inclusive of revenue funding.
- Over the past five years, we have repaired an average of 55,400 individual potholes each year.
By the end of October, the county council must also submit additional information covering asset values and compliance with best practice criteria.
The committee heard about significant improvements over the past year, such as investment based on feedback from communities, a renewed focus on resident and community engagement and a new system which will improve how the council communicates with its residents and communities who report highway issues.
Councillors were also told about the annual Quality of Life survey results, the National Highways and Transport public survey, and numbers of pothole repairs and safety inspections completed. All this information is used to identify areas where highways maintenance can improve and where added investment will be of greatest benefit.
In addition, the Public Rights of Way hierarchy was also discussed and approved. This identifies the most important public rights of way across the county so that highways maintenance can be targeted where they’re most needed. From next year, those public rights of way ranked at the top of the hierarchy will have annual inspections, this will see an additional 160km covered across the county and this prioritises routes near to schools.
Cllr Alex Beckett, Chair of the Highways and Transport Committee at Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “Improving our county’s roads, cycleways and footpaths is vital for all of us. While our Quality of Life survey shows that satisfaction with roads and pavements has risen by 7 percentage points over the last year, it’s from a low base line and it’s important we keep up the work to tackle our huge historical backlog. We are spending record amounts doing just that, and these improvements will make a meaningful difference to people’s lives across Cambridgeshire.
“I’m also particularly proud that we have developed the country’s first active travel and public rights of way maintenance hierarchy. This work will complement our car based road maintenance hierarchy and make sure we can do the right repairs, in the right place, for the right users. It’s a great example of Cambridgeshire leading the way.”
The papers from the meeting can be found on the council’s website. The meeting was live streamed on the council’s YouTube channel.
More information on the council’s report is available on our website at: https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/highways-transparency.
