Road and pavement maintenance

The council is responsible for carrying out repairs and for administering highway legislation. This includes planned and emergency maintenance, surveys and street works.

The Department for Transport expects all local highways authorities to publish information about their highways maintenance activities to help local taxpayers see the difference that funding is making in their areas.

This report explains the services that highways maintenance service covers, about works that have been completed and works that are programmed to take place.

Read the Highways maintenance transparency report (Word).

The council’s highway maintenance group is responsible for the maintenance and enforcement of approximately 405 kilometres of highway throughout the borough. They also provide advice on reporting dangerous pavements and what to do in the event of an accident resulting from trip hazards such as holes in the pavement and uneven paving slabs.

The council follows the general standards contained within the DTLR and Local Authority Association codes of practice when delivering its highway maintenance program.

The proposed planned maintenance programme is designed to the highest standard possible to improve the existing carriageways and footways. It is intended to improve the environment for those people living, working or otherwise using the public highways not only visually, but to make the streets safer and more pleasant to use. These programmes are flexible enough to complement other initiatives with funding from Visual Amenity, Single Regeneration Budget, or Area Improvement Initiative. Highway Maintenance Schemes will be co-ordinated to produce a standard defined by Best Value or better. The specification will continue to be revised to achieve the highest possible standard.

The following items have been taken into account to ‘tune’ the priority list:

• Areas where accidents have occurred
• Co-ordination with Traffic Management schemes such as Controlled Parking Zones, traffic calming measures, environmental schemes etc.
• Borough wide priority and special areas
• Co-ordination with the Street Lighting Programme, Sites reported by Council members and Complaints received from public.

Our aims

• To inspect all roads and footways regularly to make sure they are maintained to a safe standard. The items inspected include condition of footway, carriageway, white lining, guard-railing, street nameplates, street lighting, street signs, highway drainage, street trees and grass verges
• To conduct condition and assessment surveys annually. The information gathered is used to prepare planned renewal programmes, which are published on the Council web site
• To deal with issues and take enforcement action against offenders that use and abuse the highway (e.g. overhanging vegetation and building materials)
• To issue licences for skips, scaffolding, hoardings, building materials and street works, along with applications for vehicle crossovers. The target time-scale for issuing licences is 3 working days
• To inspect the work of other companies (providing services such as gas, electricity, water, telephone and cable TV) to ensure that road and footway reinstatements are carried out to high national standards of safety and quality
• To respond to reports of damaged or faulty roads, trees and footways, and take appropriate action as quickly as possible

All data is subject to change and every effort will be made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible. The information will be updated regularly.

Read the Highways Maintenance Programme 2025/26 (PDF) for more information.

This programme has been made possible by reallocated HS2 funding

Additional Resurfacing Information (Word file)

A quarterly update is provided below on the progress of the Highways Maintenance Programme and the additional resurfacing programme funded by the UK Government from the Highway Maintenance Funding Allocations  and these are shown below.

Structural Maintenance Programme 2024-25 Q4 Update

Structural Maintenance Programme 2025-26 Q2 Update (PDF)

The structural maintenance program encompasses large scale refurbishment works on the carriageways and footways, and council structures.

We have a schedule to maintain streetlights on public roads. You can report problems with illuminated bollards, illuminated signs, pedestrian crossing flashing beacons and streetlights, using the button at the top of the page. You should provide detailed information about the location and, if possible, the lamp column number.

Carriageway overlays are designed to improve riding quality of a road by the application of a thin layer of material to the carriageway surface.

Slurry sealing is an economical method of sealing carriageways against the penetration of water and improving skid resistance.

The large area footway patching programme encompasses the refurbishment of the borough road footways that are considered to be in a poor condition and includes the conversion of defective stone footways to bituminous material.

Visual amenity schemes are designed to improve visual appearance and ease of maintenance of our streets. They include replacement works and modernisation of planter bays, guard railing and benches.

The HIAMP sets out the Council’s Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Policy and Strategy. It defines the key elements of the highway infrastructure assets. It describes the consistent inspection regime,               investigatory levels and risk-based approach to be applied across the Highway network. It provides guidance and directions on the delivery of value for money highway maintenance services, consistent with the aims and ambitions of the Council Policy and the latest national guidance provided by the Highway Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP) – ‘Highway Infrastructure Asset Management’ and ‘Well-managed Highway Infrastructure-Code of Practice (October 2016)’. 

Links to the HIAMP and its appendices can be found below, but please be aware these are live working documents and are subject to be updated when changes to legislation or national/local policies/procedures impact upon this policy or its appendices.

Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Policy (HIAMP) 2025 - 2030

Appendix A - Highway Inspection Procedure

Appendix B - Lifecycle Plan for Carriageways

Appendix C - Lifecycle Plan for Footways and Cycleways

Appendix D - Lifecycle Plan for Bridges and Structures

Appendix E - Lifecycle Plan for Drainage and SUDS Systems

Appendix F - Lifecycle Plan for Street Lighting

Appendix G - Improvement Action Plan

Appendix H - Operational Procedures

Appendix I - Adopted Local Flood Risk Management Plan

Appendix J - Performance Management Framework

Any enquiries regarding the HIAMP or its appendices can be made by email to Highways.Admin@walthamforest.gov.uk