To receive any questions or petitions.
Notes:
1. The deadline for Member’s questions is 12.00pm four working days before the meeting (1 February 2013).
2. The deadline for public questions is seven days before the meeting (31 January 2013).
3. The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the meeting, and no petitions have been received.
Minutes:
Declarations of interest: None.
Witnesses:
Jason Russell, Assistant Director, Highways)
Mark Borland , Projects and Contracts Group Manager
Jim Harker, General Manager for Surrey, May Gurney
Key points raised during the discussion:
1. The following question was received from Mr. Renny Snell:
“Having considered the evidence of premature breakup of two examples of recent street resurfacing in Haslemere, can the Committee confirm that they are totally convinced the Highways Department is fully aware of this issue, has taken urgent steps to prevent its reoccurrence and will strenuously avoid the expenditure of any Council funds in effecting associated remedial work (in these or any other examples?)”.
2. The Chairman shared the following response:
““This year the County Council has undertaken an extensive programme of major maintenance (carriageway resurfacing). The vast majority of this has passed without incident and highway users are now benefitting from greatly improved road surfaces.
For a small number of schemes the end product is not to a satisfactory standard. Officers are aware of these problems and our main Contractor (May Gurney) and their sub-contractors accept this and are committed to establishing why it happened. A small task group consisting of County Council Officers, the County highway material laboratory and engineers from May Gurney has been established to investigate the failures and learn from them to minimise the likelihood of any future repetition. Initial findings indicate most problems are associated with schemes installed in late November / December 2012. The reasons are to be confirmed but it is likely to be substandard material and / or poor working practises. This group will advise the most appropriate remedial action.
All costs for any remedial work will be met by May Gurney or their sub-contractors, no costs will be borne by the County Council.”
Steve Renshaw
Chairman of the Environment & Transport Select Committee
3. The Committee discussed the question and raised concerns with the General Manager for Surrey, May Gurney that there was a discrepancy between performance data and the public perception of highways works being undertaken.
4. It was acknowledged by Officers that there had been problems with approximately 20 jobs under the Local Structural Repair (LSR) programme. It was clarified that these had been a result of sub-structure failures after the repairs had been made.
5. Officers outlined that the materials in question had been laid at the wrong temperature and that this had led to the sub-structure failures. This issue had been a localised one, and compounded by the fact that the repairs had been undertaken within a short period of time. A design flaw in the work scheme and a training issue had been identified and addressed. Each of these instances had been investigated by May Gurney, and the County Council had not been required to pay for the work. It was clarified that the work would be replaced by the end of the financial year.
6. The Committee recognised the significant improvements that had been made by May Gurney over the last 18 months or so and hence was concerned about the reputational impact to the Council and May Gurney, and commented that public perception was not governed by reported performance data. Further concern was also raised that the errors in this and similar works had occurred as a result of gangs ‘rushing’ jobs in order to hit numerical targets, whereas the real target was that of public perception.
7. The Officer from May Gurney apologised for the matter and commented that although the incidents were isolated, May Gurney were making efforts to learn from them.
Recommendations:
None.
Actions/further information to be provided:
None.
Committee Next Steps:
None.