Liverpool left with repairs backlog after taking over highways deal

Liverpool City Council will have to tackle more than 40,000 outstanding highways repairs after taking over its road maintenance programme from previous contractor Amey.

The council’s contract with Amey finished on 31 January this year by mutual agreement, with services and resources either transferring back to the council or its wholly-owned subsidiary Liverpool Streetscene Services.

Announcing the final sign-off of the decision in February, the council said the move would save up to £750,000 in the first year alone.

However, the council has said it has a backlog of “in excess of 40,000 outstanding repairs across the network” it will have to tackle. These include carriageway, footway, kerbing works, street lighting, drainage, guard rail works, and road markings.

The council said it was “keen to remedy this backlog of repairs as quickly as is practicable based on resource and funding availability,” and is now looking to procure two packages focusing on carriageway and footway repairs, which have the most significant backlog of works.

The first package includes the outstanding carriageway and footway repairs across the north, central, and southern areas of the city; while the second package includes the full resurfacing of roads in the same areas.

The council said this would be “a more cost effective solution” than attempting repairs over the next six to 12 months.

It is not yet clear how these two packages will be funded, or how they will be procured.

The council added it also had a “significant amount of major structural maintenance” planned for the new financial year, including works to Horrocks Avenue; Edge Lane Drive; Walton Hall Avenue; the A57; Walton Lane; and Upper Parliament Street.

Liverpool has already brought a series of other services back under its control in recent years. These include parks services, street cleaning, bin collections, IT, HR, and payroll services.

The termination of the highways contract means Amey’s deal finished four years earlier than originally intended, and was agreed by the city council’s cabinet last November.

A spokesperson for Amey said: “At any given point in time in a contract of this nature there will be a schedule of ongoing planned and reactive works.

‘The management and delivery of this work at the point this contract ended on January 31 2018 was part of a planned and negotiated exit agreement between ourselves and the council, and we continue to have a positive relationship with the council.”