Environment and roads

Highways Extra

Between May 2006 and March 2008, Hertfordshire County Council invested an extra £20m in improving local roads and pavements, through a partnership called Highways Extra.

Hertfordshire has one of the busiest road networks in the country, with more than 4.5 million journeys every day, meaning that our roads suffer much more wear and tear than some other parts of the country. The county council spends millions of pounds each year on maintenance, but in 2006, it recognised that the network needed a significant injection of cash to address a backlog of deteriorating roads.

So county councillors decided to invest an extra £10m over 2006/07 and a further £10m in 2007/08 in improving local roads and pavements – a 20% increase in the highways budget. Over the two year period, Highways Extra improved road or pavement surfaces at more than 750 sites across the county.

Highways Extra was a two-year programme, and came to an end in March 2008. But it has left a legacy. The programme was so successful that the approach used – and most of the people involved – have been incorporated in to a new Local Roads Maintenance Programme within Hertfordshire Highways. This financial year the county council has invested an additional £10 million in highways maintenance, and the team will be using this to deliver an extended maintenance programme, using some of the lessons learned from Highways Extra.