Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Transport Strategy Manager.

The report provided an explanation of the inspection of public rights of way process and prioritisation.

The Forum is recommended to note the report.

Officer contact: Emily Brough on 0161 474 4592 or email: emily.brough@stockport.gov.uk

A representative of the Director of Place Management submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) providing an explanation of the process for the inspection of public rights of way and how this was prioritised.

The following comments were made/ issues raised:-

·         It was commented that the majority of the inspections undertaken on the rights of way network reflected a reactive approach to maintenance.

·         There appeared to be an absence of a systematic review of the network on a rolling programme.

·         It was suggested that some inspection work had been done in the Bredbury and Romiley areas some years ago, however this did not appear to have been cascaded boroughwide.

·         In response to these points it was stated that surfaced routes were inspected as part of a rolling programme for highways maintenance.  However, it was acknowledged that a similar approach had yet to be deployed for unsurfaced routes.

·         Work was taking place to transition between paper-based inspections and computerised logging systems to drive efficiencies in the current inspections regime.

·         It was suggested that members of the public should have the ability to report faults and issues with the rights of way network online in a similar way that faults with the highway network could be reported.  The Cabinet Member for Citizen Focus stated that this service fell within his portfolio area and he undertook to request that officers investigate whether this functionality could be readily added to the existing online reporting service.

·         Concern was expressed that some issues that had been reported, such as broken fencing and overgrown vegetation had not been attended to.

·         It was understood that there were limited resources available to the Council that meant not all defects could be addressed immediately.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.