Highways work gets more local

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
Transport for Buckinghamshire (TfB) has changed its operation to work more locally.

The new way of working establishes 15 district delivery teams working out of three depots: the Aylesbury depot covering the north of the county, the Amersham depot covering Chiltern and South Bucks districts, and the Wycombe depot covering Wycombe district.

The changes aim to allow the local community at parish level to work more closely and effectively with their Local Area Technician (LAT) to direct dedicated teams to work on their local priorities.

It also aims to make communication easier and speedier, so that residents know the type of work the crews carry out.

The 15 delivery teams' areas are now aligned to the nine Local Area Technicians' areas. This allows work programmes to be focused more closely in batches on smaller areas in rotation, instead of being done sequentially.

Here's how it works
Each depot will have five dedicated crews: two pothole teams, one area maintenance crew, one road patching crew and one traffic management crew. These crews will work on jobs solely in the district served by their depot.

As well as these crews, there will be two dedicated 'Jetpatching' crews, two footway repair teams and two minor works crews. One of each team will work in the north of the county and one in the south.

The detail - depot by depot
Pothole crews will predominantly focus on repairing CAT1 potholes;Area maintenance crews will work on minor kerbing, sett work, slab laying, replacing broken gulley covers, hedge trimming and minor footpath work. They will also help with two-hour emergencies and 'Stop and Go' traffic signs when required.Patching teams will focus on road surfacing works up to 60 square metres.Traffic management crews will be responsible for preparing lane closures, traffic lights and road closures for TfB’s own crews and supply chain partners.

The detail - north and south teams

The 'Jetpatching' crews work with a purpose-built vehicle that can repair a higher number of potholes at one time, in one place.The footway repair teams will focus on minor repairs that can be done by hand.The minor works crew will work on footway re-construction, drainage work, ditch clearance and other work needing a machine.

Ruth Vigor-Hedderley, Cabinet Member for Transport said: 'This new way of working will mean that each area of the county gets the same attention from us. Although the north of the county is geographically larger, it is more rural with a similar number of roads to the other district areas. This change will mean that our work can be planned more efficiently, with a specific programme for each crew, for each area.'

Following their progress
TfB’s pothole and surfacing work blog is updated every Friday afternoon. Here you can see where the crews have been working each week, and where they will be working the following week. www.tfbpotholes.blogspot.co.uk