1. Cllr Martin Tett Leader Buckinghamshire County Council Chair LGA Environment, Economy, Housing and Transport Board Chair England’s Economic Heartland

2. Our Road Network – vital for social and economic well-being
At the heart of day-to-day activities:
Home to School
Travel to Work
Leisure and Social activities

3. Traffic Volumes – are increasing
Notable trends:
Increase in light good vehicles
Shift to larger HGV models
Buckinghamshire has one of the highest volumes of traffic of all County Council areas, which is a significant factor if you consider that we have the smallest network
Traffic volume has increased by almost 5% in Buckinghamshire over the last decade (an extra 109 million miles travelled over the last decade), but this is about average across authorities
Current Traffic Volume
% Increase in Traffic Volume

4. National Condition of the Road Network – mixed picture
The ‘proportion of network that needs improvement’ has decreased year-on-year
BUT the % of local roads regarded as poor has gone from 13% (15/16) to 18% (17/18)
Decline in road condition in 2011/12 coincides with heavy snowfall and exceptionally prolonged and heavy rainfall leading to severe flooding in both 2009 and 2010.
The more network you have before 1 mile of network needs improvement the better

5. Government Funding – a mixed picture
Highways maintenance grant needs to cover
Roads
Footways
Drainage
Bridge maintenance/repairs
Street lighting
Common for Buckinghamshire to have to top up the grant from its own resources (e.g. capital receipts).

6. Road User Satisfaction – work in progress
The NHT survey asks road users to rate a range of factors.
We have been persistently underperforming in 4 areas:
condition of road surfaces
speed of repair
quality of repair
deals with potholes/damaged roads

7. Financial Pressures – an on-going concern
£420m additional funding in Budget – welcome but is a one-year settlement only
Maintenance spending
SRN £200,000 per mile
Local £20,000 per mile
Maintenance backlog estimated at £9.3bn - LGA call for 2p of fuel duty to be ring-fenced

8. Financial Pressures – the wider context

9. Growth Pressures – brings a need to balance growth with impact

10. Our road network will remain important…

11. … need to have a co-ordinated approach to infrastructure planning and delivery
‘net betterment’ – requires us to think about implications for urban and rural areas; on natural and built environment
Requires co-ordinated investment in:
Digital infrastructure
Utilities – gas, electric
Water resources – supply, flood risk (extreme weather events)

12. Spending Review – will Government step up to the plate?
Economic potential cannot be realised without a step change in investment
Steps identified ahead of the Budget:
Government work with us to put in place a National Policy Statement for strategic infrastructure
Establish a ‘major scheme development fund’ that will develop Business Cases for the investment pipeline
An ‘indicative funding envelope’ for the region –let’s have an honest conversation about the investment choices we have to make

13. Looking to the future… Air Quality/Climate Change
Digital access to services/opportunities reducing the need to travel
Societal trends – shared workspace; future generations owning fewer cars
New Service/Business Models – autonomous vehicles

14. Delivering transformational growth is not ‘business as usual’