Welcome to the Winter 2022 edition of our Roadmap newsletter

It was good to meet many representatives of Parish and Town Councils at the Devon Association of Local Councils conference in October. I hope between the Highway, Traffic and Transport Officers in attendance we were able to answer the issues you raised. Feedback I have received indicated that the workshop on traffic speed was informative and helpful.

As you will see below, our plans for the winter gritting service are all in place, and at the time of writing this article the first few nights of action have been completed successfully. I know many of your councils participate in our Snow Warden scheme; your support is appreciated. Please let us know if your Warden has changed or contact details need updating.

As you will be aware, there are unprecedented budget pressures in local government across the country. Inflation has created a huge pressure on delivering the current highway programmes. There has been increases in material costs, fuel, and supplier labour costs. The programmes of work have had to be reduced to accommodate this. This will mean some of the work originally planned has been reprioritised and will be considered for delivery against the needs already identified for next year. 

On a positive note, I am pleased to be able to share that a further £150,000 has been secured for a further tranche of 20 mph speed limit schemes in 2023/24. It is anticipated that 6 further communities could benefit from new 20mph limits with this additional funding. We will be inviting any communities that have not already submitted expressions of interest in our first tranche to do so shortly.

Wishing you all a safe and healthy festive season.

Tony Matthews

Neighbourhood Highway Group Manager

New Stakeholder Relations Officers

We are pleased to announce that we have two new Stakeholder Relations Officers to liaise with Parish and Town Councils across the county. 

Caroline Anderson covers the North, East and Exeter areas and Phil Durrant covers the South, West and Teign areas.

Some of you will already have received information from Caroline and Phil, as it is part of their remit to inform and liaise with parishes regarding roadworks and schemes, normally three to four weeks in advance of works starting. They will also communicate with businesses who may be affected by individual schemes. If your residents have specific enquiries, they should still report via them via our Customer Contact Centre.  

Caroline and Phil are looking forward to getting to know you and working together.  

Highway Community Enhancement Fund (HMCEF)

Did you know that you can apply to our HMCEF fund for financial assistance for minor maintenance projects in your community? 

Applications can also be submitted for equipment to support your communities during the winter months. Funding has previously been granted for the purchase of additional grit bins and a salt/gritter dispenser. For further information please visit our webpages.

We have been completing some housekeeping exercises and you may have been contacted to provide historical paperwork, such as expenditure forms, case studies and photographs. These documents were and continue to be a condition of funding. See our webpage for published case studies here.

Signing, Lighting & Guarding Training (chapter 8)

We have funded traffic management training for representatives from many town and parish councils. Please note that Signing, Lighting and Guarding qualifications expire after 5 years. Please check your certificated candidates to ensure they are not working on the highway unqualified. If you need to arrange training, please email communityselfhelp@devon.gov.uk.

Grit bins

Please advise us of any empty or damaged grit bins, or any with contents that are unusable, via our report a problem page. You do not need to wait until grit bins are empty; please let us know when supplies are running low.

Snow Plans

If you are signed up to our Snow Warden scheme, is your Snow Plan up to date? Pleases ensure that you share it with your Neighbourhood Highway Officer. 

Snow plans should include:

• What areas your town or parish will prioritise during severe weather
• What resources you have available to respond to severe weather
• Snow Warden’s contact details
• Volunteer details
• Link(s) to emergency plans where they exist

When considering areas of local priority during severe weather we would like to encourage parish and town councils to use their resources on the public highway only (including footways and footpaths), but not areas treated by the county council as part of the defined salting network. You can check whether a road is on our salting network by checking our map.

Report a problem

We have a dedicated, customer friendly, webpage designed to allow members of the public to log a variety of problems, such as hazardous trees or fallen trees, potholes,  blocked drains and debris etc.  Many local Councils post a link to this page on their own website, both as a useful service to their community but also to direct members of the public to the correct Council.

Please be aware we do not accept reports from ‘fix my street’ as they often do not provide enough information to be able to accurately locate or assess an issue.

One Network

One.network (formerly roadworks.org) enables you to find out what roadworks are going on in your area and you can sign up to automatic alerts.

We also create dedicated webpages for works which are likely to impact those travelling on our network. These are available to view here.