Highway News

This information was provided by Kent County Council's Highway Services in July 2008.

HIGHWAY NEWS

How big is the highway network in Kent? The county has one of the largest road networks in the country and Kent Highway Services cares for and maintains over 5,000 miles of roads, and 4,000 miles of pavements. We regularly inspect, clean, repair, trim or improve: 2,700 bridges, 110,000 street lights, 20,000 illuminated signs and bollards, 250 traffic signal junctions,350 signal controlled pedestrian and cycle crossings 130,000 traffic signs, 28,000 street trees, 170,000 road drains, 300 miles of cycle routes

Do you regularly check the roads and pavements in Kent? We carry out safety inspections of busy A and B roads once every month and all other roads like housing estates or country lanes once every six months. For footways we inspect very busy ones, for example in large shopping areas or busy seafronts every month and all others once every year. We also carry out site visits in response to problems that are reported to us by local residents, Parish Councils or the Police etc.

New Ways of Working

Kent Highways Services started operational use of mobile working on 16th June. Using hand held devices with Field Based Inspection (FBI) software, all Highways Inspectors now have the capability to raise defects, record highway safety inspections and manage enquiries whilst on out on the highway. This will result in reduced travelling and allow operational teams to react in a more timely way. In addition, the KCC Contact Centre also started operational use of a new customer services software within their Works and Asset Management System (WAMS) to record and manage all contact into KHS, this will ensure the contact centre agents and all Highways personnel full visibility of customer reports recording the latest job status. These technology advances will be further rolled out to our Street lighting, drainage and maintenance teams during autumn. With the new ways of working, supported by new technology and software, the capability and efficiency for KHS to manage customer enquiries more efficiently has significantly increased. KHS will be embedding the changes to the processes and technology to maximum effect.

Community Liaison Officers

Creating/maintaining a close relationship with Members and Parish Councils is vital. Each Parish, District and Borough will have a named Community Liaison Officer working closely with them to provide a proactive support service on highway matters. This will help manage the direction of their concerns/complaints via a designated officer.

When I have reported a problem, what will you do?

Once you have reported a problem, we will quickly assess your call and place it in one of the following categories.

Danger

if we judge the problem to be a threat to life, we aim to make it safe within 2½ hours of receiving the report.

Hazards

if we judge the problem to be a hazard to public safety, we aim to fix the fault within five working days of receiving the report.

Streetlights

we will aim to repair streetlights within seven working days of receiving the report. However, if there is a major problem or fault with the mains power supply, we will have to call in the local electricity supply company (for example, EDF), but we aim to repair these faults within 30 working days.

Traffic signals

we aim to fix problems with permanent traffic lights within four hours if we judge the repair to be urgent. We aim to repair any other faults within seven working days.

All other problems

we will arrange to deal with all other problems as part of our routine work programme, and try to fix a number of faults in a single visit.

We aim to reply to your letters and e-mails as quickly as we can with the information you need, so we will:aim to acknowledge we have received your e-mail within 24 hours, and provide a full response within five working days or an explanation as to why a reply may take longer; and aim to acknowledge all letters within five working days and provide a full response within 10 working days, or an explanation as to why a reply may take longer.

Please report faults or problems to our staff who are available 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Please provide as much information as possible to help us find the problem. Call us on 08458 247 800.