Roadworks

Network North funding

Network North funding is an £8.3 billion commitment to highways maintenance across England over the next 11 years, and our area is due to receive over £62m in total between 2023/24 and 2033/34.

This funding is in addition to local transport funding from the last Spending Review and additional to what local highway authorities were expecting in future. It will represent a significant increase in Department for Transport (DfT) support for local roads. North Northamptonshire Council will receive £1.069m (2023/24) and £1.069m (2024/25). This is in addition to the Pothole fund uplift of £1.494m received in the March ’23 Budget.

Using funding

The money will be spent on resurfacing roads, cycleways and footways and maintaining bridges, as well as preventing potholes and other road defects. We'll coordinate our work with that already planned by other organisations (e.g. utility companies).

We looked at the annual condition surveys of the highway network and used our highways asset management strategy to prioritise work based on the condition of the road, while considering other local factors such as:

• road importance
• number of defects
• number of customer complaints

2024/25

Our plan includes additional work planned for completion by March 2025. The funding will allow us to complete work we would not have been able to previously.

The benefit of these additional works will be felt across communities - wards benefiting in 2024/25 include Irchester, Croyland and Swanspool, Thrapston, Oakley and Corby Rural.

When we carried out preventative maintenance, it showed improvements in accessibility, safety and overall road quality.

Looking ahead, the plan for 2024/25 promises a new approach towards network improvements. Additional budgets allow us to address lingering infrastructure gaps while proactively dealing with maintenance issues before they become costly reactive repairs.

By planning with other organisations and carefully allocating funding, we plan on maximising the impact of funding to improve our highways.

Highlights of our 24/25 plan include:

Innovation

Innovation is a key part of making the best use of highways maintenance funding - especially when it can delivery better value for us.

We review new technologies and adopt them where it's beneficial, as well as refining asset management techniques and encourage collaboration with industry stakeholders. Working with our contractor, we have adopted the Holistic Evaluation and Assessment Tool (HEAT) to assess our network and make sure we can capture what impacts residents most when deciding where we prioritise spending.

Recent innovations include:

An effective Streetworks Team is essential so that we can communicate constructively with utility providers and coordinate work and keep disruption to a minimum.

This includes:

• road space sharing so that roads only need to be closed once
• working with the biggest users of our network, utilities and developers, and highway maintenance contractors to make sure we meet the needs of residents
• proactive communication with local parishes to make sure we can hear the voices of residents
• surveys to make sure we aren't left with roads in poor condition after works have finished

Council funding

North Northamptonshire Council was established in April 2021. Funding for all highway maintenance activities from then (up to and including 2024/25) is over £60m, but the backlog continues to rise and sits at over £168m for the carriageways alone.

In recognition of this, and to demonstrate our commitment to improving the highway network, we have made a further £9m of our own funding available to complement the additional DfT funding across financial years 2024/25 to 2026/27.

This new approach will begin to deliver improved resilience, accessibility, and sustainability of the highway network.

Schemes

Funded from DfT 2023 Pothole Fund - work completed during 2023/24

Priority schemes to be delivered using 2023/24 DfT funding (£1.069m)

Priority schemes to be delivered using 2024/25 DfT funding (£1.069m)

Priority schemes to be delivered using 2024/25 additional North Northamptonshire Council provided funding

Last updated 22 March 2024