Purpose of Policy
Plymouth City Council is committed to asset management as a means to deliver a more efficient and effective approach to highway maintenance. This approach will support the achievement of the Council Priorities and the Plymouth Plan:
Council Priorities:
- Unlocking the City’s Potential
- Caring for People and Communities
Plymouth Plan Strategic Themes:
- Plymouth as a healthy city
- Plymouth as a growing city
- Plymouth as an international city
This policy has been drawn up by the Plymouth Highways Service as part of the ongoing development and review of its overall Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Plan (HIAMP).
Policy Statement
Plymouth will manage its transport assets to deliver a safe and well-maintained network that is fit for purpose whilst using resources wisely to deliver the best possible value for money. We will do this by continuing to pursue an asset management approach to managing and maintaining transport assets.
Asset management principles enable informed decisions to be made about investment and maintenance funding, assist in the targeting of resources to where they can be most effective, and enables the identification and management of the risks associated with its statutory duties to manage and maintain public infrastructure.
Our Asset Management Mission:
“To provide a highway network that is excellent value, giving our customer’s confidence in the investment decisions we make”
In order to achieve this mission, the focus will be on achieving the following outcomes:
Best use of Council Assets and new ways of working
- Continuing to pursue a strategy that aims to deliver maximum benefits for the available resources by, where possible: Moving away from reactive repairs to planned maintenance; considering the whole life cost of solutions to get the best balance between improvements, maintenance and repair; Aiming to intervene with the right treatment at the right time.
- The optimisation and prioritisation of works based on assessed needs, derived from the defined levels of service.
- Continuing to seek further efficiencies and reduced costs by: Planning the delivery of works to avoid unnecessary costs; Working with partners to increase efficiency; Grouping projects into work streams for delivery where this will bring benefits.
- Adopting collaborative and joint working initiatives to deliver effective and efficient services.
Quality services focused on customer needs
- Keeping our city moving by providing optimised levels of planned maintenance activities over the lifecycle of all asset types. This will allow the effective coordination of works to reduce road closures and their impacts, as well as providing maximum network availability and reliability, which supports the forward visibility of planned maintenance works.
- Engaging with the public and promoting understanding of the service to help manage public expectations and ensure that, as far as possible, the service meets the needs of local communities by: Ensuring that Councillors are well informed about the service so that they can act as local advocates and meet local needs; Making effective use of communication systems to allow the public easy self-service access to information about services, standards, planned works etc.; The explicit consideration of customer expectations and defined levels of service.
Meeting future infrastructure needs and improved street scene environment
- Implementing our Local Transport Plan that will provide an integrated transport system that maximises cost over time, value to the community and environmental contribution, whilst keeping people healthy and supporting lower carbon transport choices. lt will also integrate sustainable solutions and treatments, which minimise waste and landfill, at the centre of our approach to highway maintenance.
- Providing a safe network supporting the delivery of road safety initiatives, to help to reduce road traffic accidents and giving our users confidence to feel safe on the network.
Consultation and Engagement
In drafting this policy, we have taken note of public perception surveys and feedback drawn from relevant consultation.
This policy will be made available on the Council’s website as part of the suite of documents available to all interested parties.
Evaluation and Review
This Policy will be reviewed on an annual basis.