Responding to the Government’s recent ‘Plan for Drivers, Kiely Group welcomes the plans to create smoother journeys for all road users.

“We are glad to see the plan recognise that potholes and poor road surface conditions across parts of the UK’s road network are frustrating for many drivers, and a safety risk to all road users. We strongly believe this is a central concern for the voting public and are pleased to see the Government focused on tackling this.

Whilst the ‘Plan for Drivers’ does not outline any new investment for road surface repairs, it does reaffirm commitment to the additional £200 million for pothole funding as announced in the Spring Budget, on top of investing over £5 billion from 2020/21 to 2024/25 to maintain 13 local road networks. Additionally, Roads Minister Richard Holden MP announced £8.5 billion for road resurfacing over the next decade at Highways UK this week.

The ‘Plan for Drivers’ details measures to help more Local Authorities establish Lane Rental Schemes, fix roads faster, carry out efficient street works and harness the latest road technology.

Whilst we agree that Lane Rental Schemes are a useful measure to fine over-running street works and create an additional income stream for Local Authorities, we believe they should be given greater funding to coordinate whole road reinstatements from utilities to road surface repairs. Local Authorities should have full responsibility for road repairs and co-ordinate road surface repairs alongside delivering utility works.

However, we welcome the measure to consult on requiring local authorities with Lane Rental Schemes to use at least 50% of any surplus on pothole repairs or resurfacing. Although we would encourage specifically ring-fencing funding for this purpose in the future.

Of the 30 new steps the Government have announced to help drivers, we believe our services at Kiely Bros can directly help deliver five of them. By delivering surface dressing over traditional road resurfacing methods we can cover up to 20 times more ground a day than traditional surfacing methods, meaning less costs for customers and less disruption for all road users. This will achieve the Government’s aims to fix roads faster and encourage more efficient street work and dramatically reduce carbon impact through planned preventative maintenance.

Our new Mulitpatcher machine can carry out road repairs without the need for full road closures as it does not require any operatives to be in vulnerable positions on the road. This can help deliver smarter road closures and more efficient road repairs which also cause less traffic and higher problems of emissions in waiting traffic.

Lastly, we are committed to bringing the latest technology to the UK and our clients, as well as utilising data to improve the services we offer Local Authorities. The UK’s first-ever Multipatcher machine uses innovative software that can map where potholes have been repaired meaning that we  take “before and after” pictures for invoicing and create detailed reports on sites where the Multipatcher has been used for future inspections of works.

It is clear continued investment is needed to improve the condition of the UK’s road network and to prevent its deterioration. We believe investing in preventative surface dressing is the best way to improve our existing road network, without needing to build new roads. This will improve the experience for all road users, including drivers, cyclists and bus users.

You can access the full ‘Plan for Drivers’ here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/651fe3022548ca000dddee82/the-plan-for-drivers.pdf