Council Leader sets out future improvements for Surrey highways 18th October

The Leader of Surrey County Council, Mr. Nick Skellett, this week set out plans for significant improvements in Surrey’s highways.

Please find below a summary of what was announced;

Ensuring that once every 6 or 7 weeks local members will be able to direct the works of ‘teams’ of staff in their local areas, and members of the public are urged to contact their County Councillors to let them know what problems exist in their division.

Reviewing the ways in which the contractors record the work they have done and how they then report it to us, to ensure best practice and better transparency.

Simplifying the number of key performance indicators, which are used to monitor the performance of our contractor. From next April we will be assessing the performance of the contractors on three main indicators; was the job done on time, was it done in budget, and was it done right first time.

Enhancing our local responsiveness by retaking control of some of the functions that originally passed to contractors at the start of the contract.

The Council will be taking a much greater role in determining what work is done, where it is done, and when.

It is hoped that these alterations will lead to significant improvements in the management of our County’s roads.

Following on from this, Mr. Skellett went on to announce that nearly all of the major Maintenance Schemes planned for 2006-07 have already been completed.

He also went on to address the issue of finance, stating that since the current Government will never provide us with enough money to do everything that the Council, and the people of Surrey, would like we need to prioritise, and that SCC’s priority is, quite rightly, to keep our Highways as safe as we can for road users and pedestrians.