- £8.5m spending on resurfacing agreed for year ahead
- £700,000 on repairing potholes agreed
- 109km of roads in the borough have been resurfaced since 2016
Newham Council’s Cabinet today (Tuesday 4 April 2023) approved almost £10 million in improvements to the borough’s roads, pavements and cycle ways.
Cabinet lead for Environment and Sustainable Transport, James Asser said:
“Since 2016 Newham has invested £68m in resurfacing the borough’s roads and pavements with 109km of roads resurfaced. Today we continue that journey and this further spending will see improvements to, road surfaces, pathways and street lighting. It will support our commitment to make travelling around the borough safe, sustainable and comfortable.
“We have made this £8.5 million commitment despite an extremely challenging financial climate, but we remained committed to investing in our roads and pavements; and we are delivering this programme alongside a number of other projects which aim to improve the way people can travel in Newham.”
The Planned Highway Maintenance Programme is the borough’s long-term plan to maintain the highway network. It is essential to ensure the safety of the highway and enables all forms of travel including walking, cycling and driving. Having a well maintained highway also supports the borough’s inclusive economic growth, education, employment opportunities and access to healthcare.
The Council is working with contractors to explore potential new greener materials which offer a reduction in Newham’s Carbon Footprint. Highways will work closely with suppliers to investigate these materials and explore how they can be incorporated into the highway maintenance programme. The Highways team are looking at how these materials have been used elsewhere and what benefits they could bring, with potential to run pilot projects during the first year of the contracts.
There is budget of £25,000 allocated to refresh existing road markings across the highway network with a focus on give way markings, stop lines and hatchings as these are important for the advancement of road safety.
There is also allocation of £100,000 made for drainage schemes and this will be to repair or replace defective gully covers, repairs to the underlying drainage network and address any localised flooding and ponding issues.
A Planned Patching Programme is being introduced as part of the maintenance strategy to extend the life of the highway asset at a cost of £700,000. The programme will see both footways and roads resurfaced to directly address customer complaints.