Description
In Cumbria, Amey is working with the County Council and its consultant in a three-way strategic partnership to deliver a package of highways, street lighting and winter maintenance services.
This involves working around-the-clock to service the 1090km road network, carry out major improvements in town centres, deal with flooding and even rescue livestock on the moors.
This innovative, client-led relationship delivers significant financial savings for the Council, as well as excellent services and economic benefits for the local communities.
The commission was awarded in 2005 and is for seven years extendable to 10 years with an average turnover to date of circa £31 million per annum. The contract includes the maintenance and all capital schemes up to an individual value of £500,000 on the highway network.
We also have contracts for fleet management and maintenance, as well as closed landfill site monitoring. The benefits Amey have brought to the partnership have been recognised by all parties, particularly Cumbria County Council.
Cumbria required a bespoke highways services solution. The county is Britain’s second largest, and has a very diverse environment – the central third is national park, and the area has five different micro climates. Our operation reflects this diversity: we deal with everything from winter gritting at over 2000 feet to operating the Windermere Ferry.
During the winter months, salting and snow clearance are a serious issue. On each outing we salt approximately one third (around 2,300km) of the county’s road network. We also maintain over 11,000 salt bins and heaps across the county to enable residents to carry out their own, small-scale local salting. Amey manages and maintains 28,000 street lights, 3,500 illuminated signs and 750 illuminated bollards throughout Cumbria. We deliver both routine and reactive maintenance to ensure the upkeep of the lighting network, carrying out county-wide night scouting to identify damaged lights.
Innovations
Rain water harvesting
At Lillyhall Depot, Cumbria, two 7,500L tanks have been installed. A rainwater filter, fitted to a downpipe, collects water, while discarding leaves and debris. The clean water is then stored in a tank and pumped on demand to dedicated supply points such as toilet cisterns and for vehicle washing facilities.
Tidal debris
On Cumbria’s highways, it is common for non-liquid, non-hazardous debris, such as tidal litter, stone, gravel, soil and turf to be deposited during bad weather. It is important that this debris is cleaned away as soon as possible to reduce the risk to road users, and that waste is removed and disposed of lawfully. However, disposing of waste especially at weekends and overnight is not always possible.
In January 2009, Amey and the Environmental Agency drew up an agreement, allowing for temporary storage of material in the nearest suitable highways chippings dump or lay-by.
In the case of tidal debris and wind-blown sand resulting in the need for an emergency clearance to make roads safe and passable, in particular at Dubmill Point (Allonby) and Rampside (Barrow), Amey is allowed to use a road sweeper or JCB to clear up the material and then tip and spread the debris back onto the beach. The benefits of this approach include, improved response times, reduction in material to landfill and reduced fuel usage.
Highway Stewards Service
In February 2008 Cumbria County Council agreed to fund the development and roll out of a Highway Stewards service countywide. The initiative had been developed and trialled by Amey as part of the County’s unitary bid in 2007.
Amey led the service roll out delivering the full compliment of 24 Highway Stewards and introduction of the new service to County Councillors and the County’s 274 Parishes over a three month period.
The service focuses on delivering minor highway works requested through Parish Council representatives and by Highway Stewards on a “find + fix” basis.
In the first full year of operation the stewards dealt with over 37,000 highway issues. The service continues to receive numerous compliments and a survey of 150 Parishes in late 2008 indicated:
- 82% of respondents felt that the Highway Steward service allowed issues within the Parish to be resolved more quickly
- Only 5% of people surveyed felt the scheme hadn’t improved the condition of the highway within their parish
- 88% of the people surveyed agreed that work was carried out professionally, nobody disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement
Due to the success of Highway Stewards, we are now embarking on a new project called Better Highways in Cumbria, which is a development of the systems thinking approach to highways maintenance and reactive maintenance. This will involve expanding the highway stewards service to become two person teams called area stewards and still continuing to work within the existing highway stewards Parishes and having the capability to provide a better first time fix service.