2012 SRMCS Survey Results Show That Road Condition is Stabilising

More information is available here

SCOTS respond to the Scottish Government's consultation: Reducing the Drink Drive Limit in Scotland.

Miles Butler, President of Adept gave a presentation on their "Prospectus for Growth" at the Autumn Business meeting in Glasgow. The presentation is available in the Members section of the website.

Transport Scotland, the National Farmers Union and local authorities have agreed a national code of practice to make better use of farmers’ support this winter.

Full Transport Scotland press release -

Scottish Farmers to Help Keep Roads Clear This Winter | Transport Scotland

For the guidance document -

The Use of Farmers for Winter Service - A Code of Practice

The SCOTS response to the formal consultation on the above bill can be found by following this link.

Link to consultation response

Keith Brown MSP, the Scottish Minister for Housing & Transport gave the Keynote Address at the 2012 SCOTS Seminar in Pitlochry last week. The seminar was well attended with 22 of Scotland’s local authorities represented along with delegates from the COSLA, Transport Scotland, Scottish Government, APSE, Regional Transport Authorities and the transport industry.

Below are links to the programme from the event and copies of the presentations.

• Programme

• Why the Real Superhighway is crucial to our Economy

• The economic and social benefits of investing in road maintenance

• People not Boxes  + Slides Used

• Ink into Action

• Do we have the Energy ? (TO FOLLOW)

The delegates also held an open session on Working Collaboratively, as one of the outcomes of the recent National Road Maintenance Review, and a session on Delivery through to 2030 and beyond.

Output from both these sessions will feed into the SCOTS Business Plan for 2012-2014 which will be finalised at the SCOTS Business Meeting in August.

This year's SCOTS Achievement Award, sponsored by Surveyor Magazine, was award to Christine Francis, Glasgow City Council at the SCOTS Dinner in the Atholl Palace Hotel, Pitlochry.

Christine has been the lead officer for the Roads Asset Management Project and has put in an exceptional effort in progressing the project as a SCOTS initiative, successfully getting all 32 Councils to actively participate and achieve significant progress in developing RAMPs – probably putting Scotland in a unique and leading position in the UK. 

Also nominated for the award were Lindsay McGregor, (Dundee City Council ) and Dorothy Reid (Falkirk Council) . The photo below shows from left to right, Ewan Wallace (Chair of SCOTS), with Christine , Dorothy and Lindsay.

In April 2011 Norman Baker MP announced a review into the problem of potholes. A progress report was published in December, and the final report is now available. The Review has considered how local highway authorities deal with potholes, as well as wider stakeholder views and implications. It makes 17 recommendations that will, if implemented, provide an improvement in highway maintenance and reduce the number of potholes occurring. There are three key messages in the report:

·         Prevention is better than cure;

·         Right first time for better repairs; and

·         Clarity for the public.

Follow this link for a copy of the report

Following the publication of SUDS for Roads guidance manual, SCOTS and the SUDS Working Party have produced a Whole Life Cost and Whole Life Carbon toolkit to as an addendum to the guidance manual. The Whole Life Cost and Whole Life Carbon toolkit can be used as part of the SUDS selection criteria to provide evidence to support the appropriate selection of SUDS in different developments.

For further details and access to all associated documents go to the Best Practice section of the web site.

Local roads across Scotland are improving

The condition of roads across Scotland is improving.  This is the outcome of an annual Scotland-wide survey looking at different classes of roads.

The Scottish Road Maintenance Condition Survey (SRMCS) has been carried out every year since 2002.  The Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS) uses the information from the survey to report on the condition of the local public road network.  The results are passed to the individual Councils who report the condition of their local road network.

The 2012 results show that the local authority road network shows a small improvement in condition.  This is welcome news after some years of deterioration.  Severe winters in 2010 and 2011 saw huge amounts of damage to local roads across Scotland.  As a result, a number of Councils increased their investment in road maintenance to meet the challenges the adverse weather left.  The increased investment has seen improvements to local roads right across Scotland.

For the survey, a random 10% sample of the unclassified local road network is surveyed in each region.  These results are then compared to similar types of authorities e.g. cities or islands.  In this way, it reduces any sampling errors.

Bill Barker, Secretary of the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS) said

"Authorities all across Scotland acknowledge the key role that the road network plays in allowing our communities to develop and prosper so the results showing a small increase in the condition of our network are to be welcomed. However as the officers charged with maintaining the most valuable community asset we have we recognise we cannot be complacent and will continually strive to provide the best network we can."

National Road Maintenance Review

The SCOTS Executive welcomes the publication of the Phase 2 Report of the National Road Maintenance Review.

SCOTS members have contributed hugely to all elements of the review process and all of those involved deserve huge thanks for the work they have done. The process has seen a significant increase in the level of understanding across representatives of the 5 partner organisations. The collaborative approach has worked well over the last 6 months and will benefit all who have been involved.

The 30 Options that have been identified for implementation and further work will now be considered at COSLA Leaders’ Meeting on 18 November 2011. With the support of Council Leaders, the Road Maintenance sector is looking forward to taking forward these options into spring/summer 2012 and beyond.

http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/road/maintenance/road-maintenance-review

Operational Managers Pre-Winter Seminar

Presentations from the seminar held in Perth on the 27 October 2011 are available by clicking on the links below.

Moray Council - Involvement of Farmers

Bear Scotland - Boundaries

Fife Council - Salt Spread Rates

Traffic Scotland - Information Service

Scotland Transerv - Collaboration

East Ayrshire - Town Centre Footway Treatments

Scotland Transerv -  Route Based Forecast

Scottish Borders Council - Community Resilience

Amey - Innovations to Service Delivery

Amey - Second presentation

SCOTS Response

COSLA Severe Weather Review

SCOTS are pleased to have provided advice and support to the COSLA Severe Weather Review Task Group and endorses the recommendations contained within the Task Group report.  SCOTS would welcome the opportunity for further involvement to take forward the recommendations which should, if carried through, enhance the preparedness of roads authorities to deal with winter and other severe weather events, and minimise the inevitable disruption these cause.  This is especially relevant since climate change forecasts more severe weather events of all types. 

The report can be found at

http://www.cosla.gov.uk/resilience-planning