Transport Asset Management Plan & Works Programme (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

Transport Asset Management Plan & Works Programme

March 18, 2008 12:00 AM
By Cllr Roz Smith in County Cabinet

I recognise this plan and programme as significant for all Oxfordshire residents.

Whatever mode of transport they choose to use, this strategy for managing and maintaining Oxfordshire's highways needs to deliver.

The problems with funding from the New Labour central government have been extensively highlighted during the last few weeks, so I will not repeat the problem this is causing for Oxfordshire.

Annex 1, 'Maintaining a Vital Asset', provides the principles for the authority and I am pleased to read these reflected in the Council's Plan. In particular, appendix A lists the actions, targets and local indicators. I am pleased to see core targets which identify the need "to reduce the proportion of principal roads on which structural maintenance is required" and "to reduce the proportion of non-principal classified roads on which structural maintenance is required".

However, there is no local indicator, out of the are ten listed at present, to increase the number of cycle journeys. Indeed, in the Core Targets, number 11 is just "to maintain current levels of cycling across the County"! The officers report that this is a live document and I hope that it will change for the better.

Financial pressures are identified throughout the report and indeed the long list illustrates the immense number of footways that need maintenance. I believe my colleague, Cllr Bob Johnson has estimated that it would take a thousand years at present funding levels to satisfy the outstanding list!

Annex 5b gives the draft list of highway drainage schemes. Speaking as the local member covering Risinghurst I am pleased to see the problems of highway flooding on this estate recognised. However, under the capital schemes list it is disappointing to see the reduced programme and deferments.

On the first page of the report it states, in paragraph 4, that the majority of our roads were originally designed for the horse and cart. The majority of our estates, and I am thinking in particular of Oxford City's estates, were built during the last 80 years! But when one looks at Appendix 8 (the funding for Oxford City under the Section 42 submission and allocation) the County is funding only a very small proportion of identified highway maintenance works. Funding decisions are always difficult, but the City's estate roads, in particular those used heavily by the buses, for example Waynfleet Road on the Barton Estate, need urgent re-surfacing. I believe funding needs to take into account traffic flows and use. I think Oxford City has been short changed.