Highway asset management

What our highways network includes

The Cheshire East highways network includes 1,682 miles of roads, 1,623 miles of pavements and pedestrian paths, and 5.8 million square metres of grass verge, plus cycle routes, bridges, road gullies, road signs, street lights, pedestrian crossings, and traffic lights. Much of the network is old. This makes maintenance a constant challenge, particularly given current tight budgets.

Asset management approach

We take a systematic 'asset management' approach to looking after the highways network.

This means making long term plans and finding the most cost-effective ways to make sure the network continues to meet the needs of road users and residents into the future.

To do this successfully, we take each of the following into account:

• customer needs
• local priorities
• road condition
• environmental issues
• risk management
• money available

We invest in the ‘right treatment, at the right place, at the right time’. 

For more detail, see:

• Road condition and repairs
• Highway Asset Management Policy (PDF, 345KB)
• Highway Asset Management Strategy (PDF, 621KB)
• Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Plan (PDF, 3.1MB)

Highways funding

Money for highways asset management comes both from our own funds and from central government.

Department for Transport Incentive Fund

The Department for Transport has an incentive fund which gives money to local councils based on the performance of their highway services. Our levels of performance means we have been given 100% of the available funding for 2023/24.

Pothole Action Fund

Central government have issued a grant of £5,799,000 per year between 2022 to 2025 to help us fix potholes or prevent them forming. For a full list of our road repair programme planned for this year, see our Highways Programme of Work 23-24.

Highways safety inspections

We inspect all roads and footpaths regularly to identify any safety defects and arrange repairs.

Our Code of practice for highway safety inspections (PDF, 1.7MB) explains our inspection approach in detail.