LCRIG Content Director Alec Peachey is conducting a series of interviews with highways professionals from councils in an effort to shine a light on some of the challenges facing local highway authorities. This week, Sean Rooney – Head of Service for Highway Maintenance at Oxfordshire County Council – highlights the importance of collaboration and innovation in helping to drive change in the sector.
Q. What is the scale of the network that your authority is responsible for?
A. “Approximately 4,900km of carriageways, 3,100km of footways, 1,300 structures, approximately 60,000 street lights, around 140,000 gullies and 50,000 signs. On top of this our Public Rights of Way network is 4,200km long.”
Q. What are the biggest challenges facing you as a local authority?
A. “It may come as no surprise but one of the biggest challenges we face is that linked to the available funding. Like all LAs we face the dilemma of balancing the needs of all our services and not only highways. I am a realist and realise that we will never be in the situation where we have a limitless amount of funding to address all the issues we have. We have a great team who are proficient in assessing the needs and taking the risk based approach we have been using for some years now, we are able to balance the funding to make sure we address not only the technical needs but also, as importantly those non technical issues such as the public and elected member expectations.
“Managing expectations is a challenge in itself and that is why it is in my view critical to have a robust set of policies that have gone through the appropriate level of rigorous challenge to make sure that any decision we take are supported by the policies which have been adopted. This provides us as officers a firm foundation to be able to explain the rationale behind why we do certain things in a particular manner.”
Q. How has your highways team adapted to the challenges brought about by Covid-19?
A. “We as a client , along with our supply chain and main supplier Skanska have adapted really well. We have managed in the main, to be able to operate very much as a business as usual. Indeed in the first lockdown we took advantage of a quieter network and not only were we one of the first nationwide to complete our surface dressing programme, but we manged to bring forward some of the planned schemes.
“We still operate a front line service and with careful assessment of working practices. Both client and supplier colleagues have been able to continue to deliver those essential and critical activities on the network. We have of course had to make some adjustments such as travel arrangements and site working practices but the risk assessments have proved invaluable and ensure we have continued very much as normal.”
Q. How much importance is put on innovation within your authority and in what ways can it enable change?
A. “We feel that innovation is essential. On the wider technological perspective, our Ihub team have been involved in many leading edge trials which have contributed to national and international companies working in collaboration with ourselves and other partners including those in academia. Working in collaboration with our supplier Skanska , we have an innovations group which explores new ideas in terms of materials, processes and efficiencies. This has proved successful and led to the first trial in the UK of the use of Graphene in road surfacing, a great example of OCC offering up the network to trials of new technologies.”
Q. In what ways do you collaborate with other authorities and the supply chain?
A. “We have a number of strands such as MHA+, ADEPT and obviously through LCRIG. We are active APSE members and utilise information from organisations contributing to NHT annual surveys. As a “client family” of local authorities who have Skanksa as their suppliers, we have regular discussions and have set up a number of “task and finish groups” to share best practice and working initiatives.”
Q. How important is the subject of the environment and what are you doing as an authority in this area?
A. “Massively. In 2019 we set a commitment to be Carbon Net Zero by 2030. We have made investment into key reducers such as LED replacement and have made great progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to our carbon footprint. Working with all of our contract supply chain , we take advantage of new technologies to reduce the carbon footprint from all the activities that form part of their work.”
Q. In terms of funding for roads, what works well and what needs to be improved?
A. “Support from Central Government is much appreciated and in general it works really well. My own personal view is known to some of our readers and I am still an advocate of moving to a review of the funding regime which is reliant upon annual allocations. Could we look at a greater flexibility in the use of capital and revenue activities? A plea would also be that for specific bids, the process could be improved in allowing more time for submission and subsequently successful bids could be spent over a more appropriate length of time as opposed to having to try to “cram” the spend into artificial timeframes.”
Q. How important is the role of LCRIG in driving change within the sector?
A. “LCRIG has been the voice of many of its member authorities who may not have ordinarily had the ability to put forward views at a national level. By the fact that the membership has grown greatly from within the supply sector, as well as the local authorities it is in my view proof of the need for an organisation such as LCRIG. I have been an advocate for LCRIG for a number of years now and would encourage as many in sector colleagues to join to raise the profile further and ensure we continue to have the ear of DfT in representing LA and supply chain partners. Much change can be attributed to the input of LCRIG , but our journey is far from complete!”