LCRIG Content Director Alec Peachey is conducting a series of interviews with highways professionals from councils to shine a light on some of the challenges facing local highway authorities. This week, Mark Stevens, Assistant Director Direct Services at Haringey Council provides a fascinating insight into how the council is working with neighbouring authorities on a range of activities and why it is important for industry groups to have a collective voice when attempting to enable change in the sector.
Q. What is the scale of the network that your authority is responsible for?
A. “Haringey’s road network extends to 332 kilometres, over 600 kilometres of footways, over 32,000 street trees and over 15,000 street lights. Compared to a number of county councils dotted round the country, that might not sound like much but the highway infrastructure assets are collectively valued at £1 billion. However, highway infrastructure maintenance in London poses different challenges from elsewhere in the country.”
Q. What are the biggest challenges facing you as a local authority?
A. “Haringey isn’t dissimilar from the rest of the country insofar as a maintenance backlog exists. The Borough’s Highways Asset Management Plan identifies that 16% of roads and 59% of footways are in need of structural maintenance. Given the intensity of residential property and traffic congestion, maintaining the network automatically becomes that much more challenging. At a time when many businesses and the high street in general are desperate to trade whilst social restrictions are imposed as a consequence of Covid-19, the programming of our works and that of the public utilities attains a different level of complexity. At a broader level, though, the financial challenge is a significant one. As my responsibilities now extend to parks and leisure management, income from outdoor music events and use of leisure centres is being severely impacted. With reduced levels of travel compared to prior to the March 2020 lockdown, parking income is also down – but they are just a few examples of the challenges that most, if not all, local authorities continue to face.”
Q. How has your highways team adapted to the challenges brought about by Covid-19?
A. “Human beings are very good at adjusting and adapting according to circumstances. Covid-19 has meant a general re-think on how local public services can be delivered, not least of all forcing many of us to test the mettle of our IT colleagues, push the performance of corporate IT systems and give home broadband a hard time, particularly if entire families are using it at the same time for school as well as work purposes. It’s easier for some than others, depending upon whether you have space in your home to work effectively or not. But, for many, working out of the office remains appropriate for those who might otherwise be socially isolated, have internet connectivity issues or simply not the room. It’s only week six for me at Haringey but, on the two days that I went into the office at Wood Green, staff were working there either for an entire day or using it as a staging post to make the site visits that they might ordinarily do as the work of developers and public utilities continue.”
Q. How much importance is put on innovation within your authority and in what ways can it enable change?
A. “In the forthcoming financial year, the last 600 lighting columns will be converted to LED and a central management system introduced. That will enable us to maintain our lighting stock more effectively and attain better control over lighting levels and energy consumption. There is an aspiration to follow a ‘smart city systems’ approach so the deployment of sensors for enhanced maintenance regimes will inevitably follow at some point. But, given the economic pressures that we never seem to escape from in the highways sector, exploration of innovative maintenance techniques has to be part of our thinking. Haringey is edging ever closer to launching a bespoke new parking management IT system that we believe will be far more effective for us, residents and visitors alike. Once operational, we hope it will be seen as transformational!”
Q. In what ways do you collaborate with other authorities and the supply chain?
A. As a London Borough, Haringey is a member of LEDNet – the London Environment Directors Network – and has recently submitted a bid to the Environment Agency with neighbouring authorities for flood management. Equally, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods across the capital will occasionally straddle adjacent boroughs – and we have an instance to the north of Haringey where it makes sense to progress one such LTN with the London Borough of Enfield. Since my arrival, though, Haringey has become a member of ADEPT – the Association of Directors, Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport – and the Future Highways Research Group. The latter provides an opportunity for Haringey to not only work in collaboration with other local highway authorities but to also be more heavily involved in innovation opportunities. Of course, that means enhanced scope for not only working with our existing service providers but also to explore more niche activity.”
Q. How important is the subject of the environment and what are you doing as an authority in this area?
A. “Haringey’s response to the climate emergency has, to my mind, been pragmatic. The aspiration in the draft Climate Change Action Plan – the subject of recent consultation – is to achieve a net zero carbon Haringey by 2041, the earliest feasible date based upon the technical work already completed. If it can bring that date forward, it will. So, in tandem with that, the progression of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, promotion of sustainable modes of travel through the draft Walking and Cycling Action Plan (on which public consultation is now starting), fleet decarbonisation, reduced energy consumption for lighting and buildings, in tandem with solar power generation, all add up to a programme of positive, environmental change.”
Q. In terms of funding for roads, what works well and what needs to be improved?
A. “The funding model for London Boroughs through its linkage to Transport for London is different to that experienced across most of the country. The underlying issue, though, remains that of insufficiency of funding to maintain a status quo. Through my ADEPT role (very much supported by Haringey as a potential financial beneficiary, albeit circuitously), I am continuing to work with the DfT, MHCLG and HM Treasury to ensure there is a better understanding of the scale of the need across all highway infrastructure assets. At any one point in time, the priorities of each authority will differ – for some, it will be road surfaces and potholes, for others it will be the deteriorating bridge stock, or corroded street lighting columns, or obscured traffic signs or a growing number of sites that flood as a consequence of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. Unless the entire landscape of highway assets and their respective maintenance demands at a local level are better understood nationally, the longer the fixation on juts ‘potholes’ will continue. Through the UK Asset Management Board also feeding the necessary information into government departments, the hope is that a rolling five-year enhanced settlement for highway maintenance will be the outcome of the next Spending Review.”
Q. How important is the role of LCRIG in driving change within the sector?
A. “The challenge for all organisations and bodies that operate in the highways sector is to speak and act in unity. A loud collective voice is far more effective than many individual voices out of synch with each other – that sounds more like background noise. So, the challenge for the likes of LCRIG, ADEPT, LGTAG, the RSTA and the Asphalt Industry Alliance to name but a few is to find a way to create that collective voice. So, collaboration amongst us all is key to making ourselves heard and make positive changes happen for the highways sector. By having its links into the many SMEs that operate within the highways sector, LCRIG has the potential to add significantly to that collective voice. The challenge as we head towards the next Spending Review is to decide what our song sheet should be so that we come across as being in complete harmony!”