Hertfordshire County Council is working closely with other local authorities and contractors to ensure that disruption is kept to a minimum whilst highway maintenance is carried out.
The council has been working alongside St Albans District Council to make full use of lane closures with grass-cutting along verges of high speed routes now undertaken during the night. This minimises disruption for traffic and can cut a 12-week programme down to as little as eight weeks and demonstrate good value for money.
Furthermore, Ringway, working on behalf of Hertfordshire County Council, routinely shares all major traffic management plans with local district and borough councils, providing opportunities to work together and reduce disruption for the county’s residents and businesses, and reducing the number of times roads need to be closed.
Last week (from 28 April) a lane on the A405, A414 and A1081 was closed to allow multiple repairs and enhancements to be made. Ringway took advantage of the road closure to refresh the road markings, repair potholes, clean signs and clear out drains. Meanwhile, Amey contractors who look after the district council’s litter helped clear traffic’s discarded rubbish.
Closing lanes on major roads requires significant advanced coordination, and the traffic management required to facilitate these closures can be costly. St Albans City and District council and their contractor, Amey, have taken advantage of this lane closure to carry out litter picking avoiding the need for a lane to be closed separately, not only reducing disruption to the public but saving public money.
Rob Smith, Hertfordshire’s deputy director of environment, said: “We know that for the people using our roads, there is never a good time to close them. Unfortunately, unavoidable road closures are sometimes necessary in order to carry out routine maintenance as well as emergency repairs, but we do everything possible to keep disruption to a minimum. We are always really pleased in these situations, when district councils can coordinate their work with ours to make the very most of these unavoidable closures.
“This most recent coordination of works demonstrates our commitment to partnership working and making best use of taxpayers’ money.”
