Introduction

The state of the roads and tracks on Leith Hill is often the subject of complaint by residents. Consequently I have set out to describe in simple terms who looks after our highways, how we get repairs done and what I think local people can do to improve the state of the roads.

I will also be posting up the latest news on this issue.

At the end of 2007, I attended a meeting of the Dorking Rural Transport Forum, a meeting set up by Helyn Clack, Surrey County Councillor. You can view the minutes of that meeting by clicking here.

More recently there was a meeting in April 2008 between David Munro of Surrey Highways and various parish councillors from the Leith Hill area. You can see the issues discussed by clicking here.

Surrey County Council is the Highway Authority

Surrey County Council is the local authority with primary responsible for our highways. The service is run by the county council’s "Transport for Surrey", which is headed by Mr Iain Reeve as from the 2^nd July 2007.

Motorways and trunk roads are managed by the Highways Agency, which is run by central government.

If a planning application submitted to Mole Valley gives rise to a transport issue, then Mole Valley will consult Surrey County Council, as the Highway Authority on that planning application. Surrey County Council has a department - Transportation Development Control that carries out this function.

The "Roads and Transport" section of Surrey County Council’s website www.surreycc.gov.uk has a wide range of detailed information about how the county council builds, repairs and maintains our highways.

Surrey County Council also publishes a Highways bulletin every month to district councillors. At the time of writing there are structural works scheduled to Felday Road. The bulletin does give direct contact numbers for various members of staff at Surrey County Council but I am forbidden from giving these out to the public.

Reporting a defect in the highway

If you want to report a defect in the highway, such as a pothole, you can use Surrey County Council’s online reporting form or you can call them on 08456 009 009.

If the defect is an emergency (such as a landslide), you should always use the telephone number. Remember – defects in the highway can kill or injure people.

Before the online reporting form comes up, they ask you to identify the type of highway problem. Their database caters for a very wide range of problems from burnt out cars to blocked or flooded culverts. You identify the problem first by choosing a letter of the alphabet.

So "pothole" comes under "P" and a blocked or flooded culvert comes under "C".

You can also find out about the latest road works in your area and find out about transport studies published by Surrey County Council. The website has a wide range of information, including parking, cycling, traffic lights, safety cameras and speed limits.

What about drainage and flooding?

Responsibility for drainage and flooding is more complicated than highways. Go to Surrey County Council website, and click on "Road and Transport", then "Roads" and then "Road Maintenance" and finally "Drainage and Flooding".

Very briefly, the responsibilities lie as follows:-

• The clearing of street gullies obstructed by leaves – that is normally undertaken in the course of street sweeping by Mole Valley District Council.

• Internally blocked gullies or blocked gullies causing dangerous localized flooding is the responsibility of Surrey County Council. Sometimes these are described as "highway structures". Click under "What is a highways structure" under the "Bridges and Structures" section of the Surrey County Council website for more information. You can report these to the county council using their on-line form.

• If it is a river that is flooding, you need to report the matter to the Environment Agency.

• If it is a "non-main river" or land drainage, that is a matter for Mole Valley.

• If it is a public sewer, that is matter for Thames Water or another water company.

• If it is a problem arising from private road, private land or a private sewer, you need to consult the Land Registry to find out who owns it and who is responsible. Local authorities or other statutory organizations may not be able to help at all.

What kind of standards does Surrey County Council have for maintaining our roads?

Surrey County Council publishes on its website, under the Roads and Transport section, a document entitled "Highway Safety Inspections Standards and Procedures".

This is a detailed manual for identifying defects on the road and repairing them. The procedures describe how records are to be kept, how defects should be described and categorized, how long it should take to repair a defect and how often inspections of various roads should be taken.

On page six, the county council says that its objective is:-

"In practice, making safe, signing and/or repairs should be carried out within the designated time constraints, in order that, as far as is reasonably possible, the condition of the highway is what a reasonable person would expect to find."

How often does Surrey County Council inspect our roads?

The council’s Highway Safety Inspections Standards and Procedures describe how often roads are inspected, and this depends on their priority, described as the "Surrey Priority Network" or "SPN" level.

For instance "B" and "C" roads are SPN Level 2 and they have to be inspected once every six months.

How does Surrey County Council identify defects in the road?

Surrey County Council distinguishes between the different types of defects that they find on their safety inspections.

A Category 1 defect will require prompt attention because they represent an immediate or imminent hazard.

A Category 2 defect is all other defects, which are further sub divided into Categories 2A, 2B and 2C.

Surrey County Council has codes to identify different types of defects, so a pothole is written down as "SACP"

How quickly does Surrey County Council have to act to repair a defect in the road?

A Category 1 defect has to be repaired (if only on a temporary basis) within 24 hours of the discovery of the defect. If a temporary repair is undertaken, then a permanent repair has to be completed within 28 days of the discovery of the defect. However for practical reasons, certain defects such as road subsidence may take longer than 28 days to repair.

Category 2 defects are further categorized into Categories 2A, 2B and 2C. These sub categories are defined by reference to the "engagement of resources required to make safe the defect." So practically speaking it depends on the ability of the local authority to get the job done at any given time.

In general a Category 2A defect has to be repaired on a temporary basis within 7 days of discovery, and then a permanent repair should be completed within 28 days.

2B defects should be repaired within 28 days of discovery, whilst Category 2C defects wait until the next inspection.

So what precisely are we going to do about the roads on Leith Hill?

Leith Hill suffers particularly badly from highway problems. Part of the reason for this is that the hill itself is a watershed and water runs down, undermining the fabric of the road. Heavy vehicles and the frost do the rest.

• Working together with Surrey County Council

At a meeting that took place in June 2007 in Coldharbour. I suggested to local residents that we should all take it upon ourselves to use Surrey County Council’s on-line reporting forms to report defects in the highways. They have set up a comprehensive website to address the problem of highway defects and inform the community. We should also remember that the county council is responsible for nearly 5000 kilometres of public highway, over 6000 kilometres of footway and more than 800 kilometres of cycleway. Therefore it takes time before they take action, but they are more likely to take action if a specific defect is brought to their attention.

My advice at the meeting was that we should all use website to report defects in the road.

• Keeping a central record of reports

At the same time, I suggested that we should record when our reports are made and then send them to myself, Councillor Johnson at malcolm@mjsol.co.uk. I will then log those reports into a central record.

The idea behind keeping a central record is that it allows us to monitor:-

• How many complaints are made about the roads
• Where the defects are appearing
• How quickly Surrey County Council responds to a report

Making a complaint

Surrey County Council invite people to make comments, compliments and complaints about their services, under the "About your council" section of their website.

They give a range of persons to whom one can complain, beginning with the person who delivers the service you want to comment about.

East Surrey Highway Services is the division of Surrey County Council that deals with the maintenance of road in Mole Valley. Their address is:-

East Surrey Highway Services

Surrey County Council                                                                                                                                                                                        Mid-Surrey Area Office,Opus II AO1                                                                                                                                                                            Kingston Road, Leatherhead, KT22 7SY

Area Director – Roger Archer-Reeves

There is then a County Complaints Manager at:-

Tel. 020 8541 7988  Fax. 020 8541 7979

Surrey County Council describe their complaints procedure in "Making a complaint – step by step" under the "About your council" section of their website.

Do we need to submit a complaint now?

In fairness to Surrey County Council, there is no point in submitting a complaint unless we have grounds for doing so. Before that step is taken, we need to give Surrey County Council feedback on the way in which they are responding to reported problems, and find out whether they are in fact complying with their own Highway Safety Inspections Standards and Procedures.

We don’t need to do this all by ourselves. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we can request details of works carried out to the roads in Leith Hill over for instance a six month period.

Click here for a list of the up to date problems on our roads

Councillor Malcolm Johnson                                                                                                         Return to home page