Agenda item

(To receive a report from Richard Fenwick, County Highways Manager, which sets out the reactive, cyclic, and planned aspects of highways drainage maintenance including low-level flooding response)

Consideration was given to a report from Richard Fenwick, County Highways Managers, and Shaun Butcher, County Programme Manager, updating the Committee on the reactive, cyclic, and planned aspects of highways drainage maintenance including low-level flooding responses. Members were advised that the Council had 190,000 highway drainage assets including gullies, Catchpits and Offlets across the county, of those, 98,000 had been cleansed in the routine programme and 10,500 had defects requiring follow up work. Defects included jammed lids, broken or missing ironwork, damaged pots or chambers, or blocked connections. Contractors took photos of defects, aiding local teams to access whether it needed immediate attention could be planned at a later date. The Council worked currently with eight tankers but looked to recruit more through ACL. To mitigate limited staffing numbers of critical services were prioritised and in order to ensure work was completed by the end of the financial year. In recent months, officers were advised from both Members of the Council and public that more timely but shorter answers were more satisfactory than detailed delayed answers, therefore, officers endeavored to take this into account when addressing customers in the future. The funding for minor drainage improvements for 2021/22 was increased from £300,000 to £600,000 to enable problematic small schemes that occur during each period of severe weather to dealt with. A full programme of drainage investigation works continued through 2021/22 by Ajet. Minor Works Gangs used CCTV equipment and tools to carry out minor civils repairs or root cutting, attending 305 sites, with a further 204 designed and scheduled for the rest of the year. A successful Invest To Save bid approved, by Members in 2020/21, of £2.2m was allocated to the Floods and Water Team. £1.4m had been programmed onto various drainage schemes with the remaining budget planned to be spent in 2022 on larger and more complex scheme. Work had been undertaken collaboratively with colleagues from the Flood and Water Management Team to undertake Section 19 Investigations. All flooding and drainage reports were mapped through CSC and Fix My Street.

The Committee considered the report, and during the discussion the following comments were noted:-

• Members welcomed the Development Drainage Funding, asking for an overview of the broad nature of schemes currently under consideration. The County Programme Manager explained that consideration was currently undertaken by the Technical Team and offered to provide further detail outside of the meeting.
• Acknowledging the limited take up of gully clearing amount residents, Members asked if the Council had a dialogue with district councils to encourage leaf clearing on streets before a flooding problem was caused. The County Programme Manager stated that the Council had always worked closely with district councils to coordinate works, however Lincolnshire’s large geographical footprint made created challenges to effectively ensure gullys were cleared particularly in times of high leaf shedding.
• Members shared experienced of significant delays in the availability of CCTV equipment to investigate blocked gullys, going onto ask what was considered reasonably acceptable by officers in delays. The County Highways Managers explained that over 200 sites throughout the county required addressing by Minor Works Gangs. These outstanding sites were prioritised dependant on risk factors.

RESOLVED

That the report and comments be noted.