Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies.

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

None were disclosed.

Resolved: The minutes from the meeting held on 10 September 2021 be confirmed as an accurate record.

-  Drainage Issues In General

-  Annual Update on Winter Maintenance

-  Quality of Highway Repairs

The Chair welcomed to the meeting County Councillor Charlie Edwards, Cabinet Member for Highways; Phil Durnell, Director of Highways of Transport; John Davies, Head of Service Highways; Ridwan Musa, Highways Service Manager (Operations); Michael White, Highways Regulation Manager; Kirstie Williams, Highways Manager – Operations; and Laura Makeating, Principal Flood Risk Manager.

The Joint Work Planning Session for Internal and External Scrutiny earlier this year highlighted several topics in relation to the Highways Service that members wished to be considered as part of the Work Programme. Presentations from the Highways Service were provided to members of the Internal Scrutiny Committee to consider the following three topics:

·  Drainage Issues– Requests had been received to look at general drainage issues in Lancashire and in particular to look at the policies around drains.

·  Annual Winter Maintenance update.

·  Quality of Highway Repairs – To review the standard of highway repairs carried out by external organisations and contractors.

Regarding Drainage Issues, comments and questions raised were as follows:

·  Drainage systems included a range of assets including highway ditches, grips, trash screens, culverted watercourses, gullies, manholes and slotted channels and associated highway drainage systems.

·  One of the key objectives was ensuring water was removed from carriageways, footways and cycleways to prevent flooding that could cause a danger to the public.

·  Another key objective was prevention by enforcement of any illegal placement of water on to the highway network by third parties.

·  The committee enquired if vegetation removal was a priority or did the public have to report the issue. Vegetation removal was critical. Leaves on the ground was a problem. The county council worked with the districts and boroughs regarding sweeping. The county council could only cut back the vegetation that it owned, and this was an ongoing challenge.

·  The interaction between the Highways Team and planning authorities around flooding issues was a concern. There were two Flood Risk Management Authorities within the county council. One was the Highways Authority which looked at planning applications in relation to highway flood risk and drainage. The second one was the Lead Local Flood Authority which managed surface water. It also had a statutory function to comment on all major developments regarding surface water drainage.

·  Flooding of unadopted roads and who deals with the issue was raised as a concern.

·  Drainage issue priorities were reviewed annually. Members enquired how they got input into these priorities and had there been any effort to localise these priorities by working with district councils.

·  There was concern about the flooding of highway's gullies in rural areas. Many of them leaked into water courses. There had to be more intervention with riparian owners. It was established that many did not know they were riparian owners of water courses when they bought their property. Members enquired if the Environment Agency (EA) could help out more regarding this and advised that the EA's responsibilities were dealing with main rivers and coastal flood risk.

·  The problem of cement getting into gullies from new housing developments and renovations was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The Committee received a report which provided information on the draft work programme for the Internal Scrutiny Committee.

The topics included in the work programme were identified at the joint work planning workshop for Internal and External Scrutiny held on 9 July 2021 and included topics that were still relevant and needed reviewing from last year's work programme.

Resolved: That the Work Programme presented be noted.

An item of urgent business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency. Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Member's intention to raise a matter under this heading.

There was no Urgent Business.

The next meeting of the Internal Scrutiny Committee will be held on Friday 21 January 2022 at 10:00am in Cabinet Room C, County Hall, Preston.

The next meeting of the Internal Scrutiny Committee would take place on Friday 21 January 2022 at 10.00am at County Hall, Preston.