Major roads in Essex ranked among the worst in the country

Road surfaces across Essex are among the worst in the country, the watchdog for transport infrastructure has said. A report by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) found the region’s road surfaces to be “consistently lower” than the rest of the country.

The ORR report shows the condition of road surfaces in National Highways’ East region – covering Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Essex and Bedfordshire – is consistently lower than the rest of England. The South West region, covering Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire, consistently performs the best.

The East region trails the national-level target by nearly 3 per cent and has had the lowest proportion of good condition road surfaces for the last three years. This region’s strategic road network has a higher proportion of A-roads, which are harder to maintain, and has more concrete roads, which do not perform as well as asphalt.

However, new data shows that while these effects are significant, the East region underperforms even when these factors are accounted for.

National Highways Executive Director for Operations Duncan Smith said: “We know that good quality roads are important to the millions of drivers that use our network each day. We regularly inspect our roads to help reduce the potential for potholes to form and we are meeting national targets designed to ensure our road surfaces are kept in a good condition.

“Our latest assessment shows that over 96% of our roads are in good condition and we continue to improve the surface of our roads including in the East of England.”

National Highways are in the process of upgrading road conditions across Essex, including between Marks Tey and Stanway on the A12.^[3] More than £200m has been committed to improving and, in a number of cases, removing the old concrete surface of roads in the east, including the A12 in Essex

There are also plans to increase capacity to three lanes on each carriageway of the A12 between Chelmsford and the junction with the A120 at Marks Tey^[4] which are moving forward. This is a billion pound scheme where – subject to a form of planning permission from the government – the start of work could be next year with an estimated completion in 2027/28.

Feras Alshaker, director of planning and performance at the ORR, said: “National Highways has met its road surface condition performance target for the sixth year running. Our report is an important tool that we expect National Highways to use to understand the variations in the company’s regions and share intelligence with road operators elsewhere to help ensure performance is maintained at a consistently high level.

“We will continue to hold National Highways to account, including on road surface condition, a key output of its asset management decision making, on behalf of all users of the strategic road network.”

References

1. ^{^} Builder becomes trapped in 8-foot deep hole in Leigh as firefighters rescue him after six ‘long’ hours (www.essexlive.news)
2. ^{^} Essex couple ‘left in limbo’ over huge Luton Airport car park fire, claiming they still don’t know if their car survived (www.essexlive.news)
3. ^{^} including between Marks Tey and Stanway on the A12. (www.essexlive.news)
4. ^{^} increase capacity to three lanes on each carriageway of the A12 between Chelmsford and the junction with the A120 at Marks Tey (www.essexlive.news)