30 April 2013 - 1 January 0001, 21:00-00:00 -

HMEP Guidance on the Management of Highway Drainage Assets

This half day complimentary  event took place on afternoon of Tuesday, 30 April.  Speaker presentations can be viewed by scrolling down.

Venue:

Space@119
Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation
119 Britannia Walk
London, N1 7JE

Event sponsor:

Click here to be directed to HMEP pages on DfT website.

CIHT members can view all speaker presentations  by signing into their MyCIHT membership area.

Programme:

1:40 – Registration and tea/coffee 

2:00 – Welcome, introduction and housekeeping: Matthew Lugg – HMEP Advocate 

2:10 – Keynote presentation: Will Rogers, Technical Director, Transportation Water Services – URS – Guidance on the Management of Highway Drainage Assets 

2:35 – Session 1: Peter Wells, Highway Asset Management Lead – Nottingham City Council – Selection of Survey Equipment

3:00 – Session 2: Michael Whitehead, Head of Drainage & Water Environment - Highways Agency - Targeting Flood Hotspots on the Strategic Road Network

3:25 – Session 3: Andy Stevenson, Infrastructure Asset Manager – Cornwall Council – Effective Use of Limited Budgets 

3:50 – Session 4:  Andrew Savage, Contract and Policy Manager  - Warwickshire - County Highways - Multi-Agency -  Partnering Approach to the Management of Flooding in Warwickshire since 2007

4:10 – Wrap up with Q & A

– Concluding remarks and close

4:30 – Close

General Overview:

Recent severe weather events have exposed inadequacies with highway drainage systems following the impact of flooding to homes, businesses and highways under the glare of national press interest.  The Department for Transport, through the Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP), allocated funding to encourage and identify good practice around an asset management approach to the management and maintenance of highway drainage assets.  

The findings concluded that the majority of local highway authorities do not have comprehensive drainage inventories and are experiencing a greater frequency of severe weather events.  As a consequence, major disruption and damage to the highway network is being caused as a consequence of the increasing impact of climate change, particularly the effects of flooding.  Local highway authorities must therefore develop climate change strategies that reduce the risk of flooding while balancing growing service demands with limited resources.  HMEP has sought examples of ‘good practice’ from within the sector and summarised its findings within a new guidance document titled ‘Guidance on the Management of Highway Drainage Assets’ aimed at promoting the issues that need to be considered by local highway authorities.  Applying the principles as outlined within this guidance document will help local highway authorities to achieve value for money by balancing short term interventions with a long term management approach.  

The guidance highlights a number of recommendations under three main themes: 

• Defining the asset, 

• Service delivery, and 

• People and partnerships 

The objective of the event is to support and promote the release of the new HMEP guidance document.  An overview of specific recommendations are presented that best promote the main themes and showcases the current ‘good practice’ from within the sector that others could consider or introduce to their systems.