Highways satisfaction survey

Since 2015, Lancashire County Council has taken part in the annual National Highways and Transport Network (NHT) survey which collects the public's views on different aspects of highway and transport assets / services in local authority areas.

This takes the form of a targeted letter drop survey and an online highway maintenance themed survey to obtain a broader view of opinion. Whilst percentage scores from the paper survey were overwhelmingly more positive than those received from the online survey, the 'pattern' of results is surprisingly similar.  From a satisfaction standpoint, the 6 top scoring indicators were the same in both online and paper surveys, as were the bottom 4, albeit in a slightly different order.

Condition of road surfaces, quality of repair to damaged roads and speed of repair to damaged roads continues to be of highest importance to a large percentage of the residents of Lancashire County and is also what is considered to have deteriorated the most.

Indicator	Paper	Online
Provision of street lighting	57%	49%
Undertakes cold weather gritting (salting)	57%	46%
Condition of road signs	54%	43%
Speed of repair to street lights	53%	50%
Undertakes snow clearance	52%	43%
Cleanliness of road signs	52%	39%
Cleanliness of roads	48%	36%
Deals with mud on the road	46%	36%
Provision of drains	45%	33%
Condition of road markings	45%	27%
Weed killing on roads	43%	39%
Provides information on gritting	41%	36%
Maintenance of verges/trees/shrub	41%	34%
Keeping drains clear and working	41%	25%
Deals with flooding on roads	40%	27%
Quality of repair to damaged pavements	39%	31%
Cuts back overgrown hedges	38%	34%
Speed of repair to damaged pavements	35%	28%
Quality of repair to damaged roads	27%	11%
Deals with potholes/damaged roads	26%	10%
Condition of road surfaces	26%	8%
Speed of repair to damaged roads	24%	10%

You said, we did

As a result of the feedback received, the county council works hard to provide enhancements and improvements to our processes e.g. the way we fix potholes, and strives to introduce improvements to the way we communicate with our residents around planned carriageway and footway repairs to address some of the concerns raised.  This includes designated webpages explaining various aspects of our approach to carriageway and footway maintenance.

We have also introduced a 'You said, we did' initiative to provide updates on what action we're taking to tackle some of the issues highlighted by the feedback.

You said…	What we've done / are doing…	Desired result
Improve communications (to impacted homeowners) both prior to, and during, scheduled works	Increasing use of metal road signs, providing intended works information, as opposed to the current streetlight signs	Improving visibility for those travelling around our county
	Embracing the use of new technology e.g. QR codes	Improving direct access to information already online
	Improving the provision / consistency of letters and / or postcards which are provided to impacted homeowners	Improving communication to those residents directly affected by our work
	Create new letters / postcards which will provide additional information on works where time will elapse between treatments e.g. we'll be back	Improving communication to those residents directly affected by our work
You said…	What we've done / are doing…	Desired result
Provide additional information to local councils to improve visibility of upcoming works	Implement a comms channel with local / parish councils to confirm upcoming works	Improving the stream of information provided to customer facing personnel to help reduce the number of queries received. And to facilitate self-service.
You said…	What we've done / are doing…	Desired result
Why one road is resurfaced (fixed) versus another?	Development / provision of an online scheme dashboard	Improving the visibility of scheduled works and what work is being done
	Development of information videos to ensure new technological information is accessible to all	Improving information and background as to why we do, what we do
You said…	What we've done / are doing…	Desired result
Poor communications in relation to highways maintenance, and also in relation to our aim to reduce our carbon footprint	Creating bite-sized campaigns to highlight the process of prioritisation of highway maintenance, and embracing new low carbon / recycling schemes e.g. biobinders	Challenge negative perceptions by improving communications to residents on the work being done to improve our highways and to reduce our carbon footprint