East Ham High Street South resurfacing works made possible by reallocated HS2 funding

Newham Council has received £213,000 in funding from this DfT fund for the current financial year, which has been used to resurface High Street South in East Ham between the junctions of Rancliffe Road and Lonsdale Avenue. Newham will receive an additional £213,000 in funding for the 2024-2025 financial year, which will be used to resurface High Street North between Plashet Grove and Ron Leighton Way. 

In October the Department for Transport (DfT) announced £8.3 billion in additional funding for road resurfacing and maintenance works for local highway networks across the UK. This funding was made possible by reallocated HS2 funding, and will be made available over the period 2023-2024 and for the next 10 years.  

The resurfacing works on High Street South were completed in February 2024. This increased this year’s total resurfacing area by almost 800m to 6.5km. High Street South is a key north-south corridor in Newham, linking communities of Manor Park, Plashet and East Ham with Beckton. It serves five bus routes, delivering large numbers of passengers to the key shopping areas at East Ham and Beckton. It is also a key cycling corridor. 

The decision to use this additional DfT funding to prioritise High Street South was based factors including surface condition, particularly at bus stops and on cycle routes, and safety risks from vehicles skidding. As part of our selection criteria, we noted concerns raised by stakeholders in TfL. 

Regarding the choice of asphalt to use, we discussed this extensively with our contractors and their suppliers. Following careful consideration, we chose a product called ‘Tufflex’ which contains a flexible ‘polymer modified binder’ which resists cracking from brittleness, and inhibits the intrusion of water below the surface to make the road more durable and less prone to deformation under high traffic use. 

A further £213,000 in funding from DfT in the 2024-2025 financial year will be used to resurface around 600m of carriageway on High Street North in East Ham between Plashet Grove and Ron Leighton Way. This section of the street is located outside East Ham station and near main bus stops, which are key points of arrival into the town centre. Improvements to the carriageway surface supports an improved look and feel for this busy and high profile section of East Ham, one of Newham’s key town centres.  

These resurfacing works are part of the broader ‘Keeping Newham Moving’ programme, in which Newham is investing £100million between 2016 and 2026 for highway maintenance, including reconstruction and resurfacing works, patching, sealing and works to help water evaporation. Additionally, the Keep Newham Moving programme is introducing new parking zones and replacing all existing street lighting with energy-efficient LED lighting. 

Now in the eighth year, the Keep Newham Moving programme has made significant improvements to Newham’s roads and has covered over a quarter of the road network with new asphalt. 

Over the last five years, the investment made by Newham for resurfacing works include: 

With a budget allocation of £4 million planned in the 2023-2024 financial year for resurfacing works, Newham will have completed resurfacing on 20 roads and a total length of 5.7km by the end of April.  

Next year will be year nine of the Keep Newham Moving programme. We aim to go to cabinet in April 2024 to agree the list of roads that will be included in the 2024-2025 annual maintenance programme. Similar this to this year, we will use the prioritisation criteria for scheme selection, which will be presented to Cabinet on 2 April 2024 for approval.