Roads

Local highway authorities manage a wide range of assets, including carriageways, footways, drainage, bridges, street lighting, traffic signals and road markings. They are responsible for managing their networks, including asset data and maintenance decisions, which are best taken at the local level.

The Department works with the sector to promote best practice in asset management and the use of data to support long-term planning. Local highway authorities must now publish highways maintenance transparency reports, which provide information on network condition, maintenance activity and investment. These reports also require the publication of information on key aspects of asset management, including availability of asset inventories and utilisation of this data to support maintenance decisions. This supports a more consistent and comparable understanding of how networks are managed, while allowing authorities flexibility in how they manage their assets.