Liverpool City Council has appointed three contractors to deliver a £35m Highways Improvement Programme (HIP), with upgrades planned for more than 100 roads.
The improvement works, funded from a mix of sources including the city council, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and the Department of Transport, will see the delivery of:
- 39 schemes in the north of the city – delivered by Dowhigh
- 33 schemes in the central district of the city – delivered by Huyton Asphalt Civils
- 36 schemes in the south of the city - delivered by Colas
The council stressed that the 'data-led' HIP demonstrates the reforms it has made to highways delivery in the wake of the Caller 'Best Value' report, which gave a scathing assessment of Liverpool's highways department.
Cllr Dan Barrington, cabinet member for environment and climate change, said: 'The contractors are all experienced firms with a long track record of delivery in the city region, and the local supply chain will benefit greatly from this investment.
“In response to the Best Value report last year we’ve also radically changed how we evaluate our roads to ensure we invest in the right areas and that the contracts deliver the right results.
“Having a data-led, geo-based approach also ensures intelligence-led programming to avoid any clashes on the network and prevent longer journeys and more pollution.
'This will be our first year in adopting this new system so it won’t be perfect, but we will gain a huge amount of new data and evidence as we go along which help us to learn and improve the programme for next year.'
The programme divides the highways schemes into two categories – simple and complex.
A simple scheme 'only requires a maintenance intervention of relatively small scale and complexity' and will generally be the first to be delivered on site, the council said.
A complex scheme is subject to additional interventions/design considerations, such as active travel, and changes to the traffic regulation order. These will be delivered at a later stage in the programme.
The delivery of the HIP has also been designed to ensure the schedule of works will minimise impact in any one area, avoiding clashes with longer terms schemes already in place.
