Environment and roads

Keeping Hertfordshire on the move

Hertfordshire Highways is responsible for a whole range of services to keep Hertfordshire's road moving now and in the future. Although much of the work we do is pre-planned and designed to extend the life of our roads, we also provide vital support to the emergency services in the event of an incident.

To help ensure that traffic on Hertfordshire's roads keep moving freely, we have four dedicated emergency response teams ready to assist at all types of incident, day or night, across the county.

The teams consist of highly experienced staff who are trained to:

• Respond as quickly as possible - and certainly within one hour - to road traffic accidents. Our main role is to provide diversion routes around the incident for other traffic while helping the emergency services gain quick and easy access to and from the site of the accident. The team's fast action ensures that any emergency repairs are made so that traffic lanes are put back into use as quickly as possible, and delays are kept to a minimum.
  
• Attend emergency highway faults with a road within 1 or 2 hours depending on the type of problem. An emergency fault is one that could cause danger to the public such as exposed electrical wiring, diesel/chemical spillages and accident or storm debris.
  
• Make safe problems on the road such as flooding and major potholes.

Hertfordshire Highways receives about 200 emergency calls each month but this can increase by up to 30 per cent during periods of bad or extreme weather.

When the response teams are not responding to an emergency they inspect the county's roads to help prevent problems or accidents occurring. When a problem is found or reported by a member of the public they will repair it if they can, or make the fault safe until a more permanent repair can be made.

Reporting a fault

To help us keep Hertfordshire's roads up to scratch, we need you to tell us when things are not right.

So if you spot a pothole, pavement problem, faulty street light, icy road or any other highway fault, please visit www.hertsdirect.org/highwayfaults.