The Government has said that 25% of the £500 million additional funding for 2025 to 2026 will be contingent on local highway authorities demonstrating to Government that they are complying with certain criteria aimed at driving best practice and continual improvement in highways maintenance practice.

The highway network in Worcestershire is managed with a careful balance between carrying out long-term structural and preventative maintenance repairs plus reactive repairs. Reactive repairs are often necessary for safety and other reasons, but like many other authorities, Worcestershire carry out a proper risk-based asset management approach to reduce the need for short-term patching as set out in the Code of Practice on Well Managed Highway Infrastructure when determining to carry out structural, preventative and reactive maintenance.

In response to the Local Highways Maintenance Fund, this report provides information about how Worcestershire County Council manages the highway network:

• how much the authority is spending on highway maintenance, on both capital-funded and revenue-funded activities, and how this compares to the previous 5 years
• the overall state of the network, including what percentage of our roads are in what condition, and how this has changed in recent years
• an estimate of how many potholes we have filled in in each of the last 5 years
• our plans for 2025 to 2026 including which parts of our network you plan to resurface
• the balance between preventative and reactive maintenance in our plans
• what our authority is doing to minimise the disruption caused by utility companies’ streetworks and to ensure that these are planned and coordinated effectively including with our own maintenance plans
• what we are doing to make your networks more resilient to the changing climate
• what we are doing to follow best practice and deliver innovation and efficiency

The report can be downloaded here:

• Local Highway Maintenance Report (PDF)