Overview
Worth in the region of £1 billion, the Bury borough highway network is one of our most valuable assets vital to the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of the area. As such, we recognise the importance of our roads for our borough, its residents, and the local business community.
We understand and share residents’ frustration when roads can’t be maintained to the standard they expect, but the reality is that UK Government funding alone is insufficient to maintain our highway assets.
In the last 14 years the Bury borough has received around £5 million per year while around £12 million per year is needed. This equates to a shortfall of approximately £98 million!
Additionally, any extra funding pledged by Bury Council must be weighed against significant budget pressures and rising costs in other critical service areas, particularly adult and children’s social care.
Nevertheless, to help towards bridging the funding gap and improve the overall standard of maintenance across the Bury borough highway network, Bury Council has borrowed £30 million to guarantee extra funding over 9 years to March 2026.
We have also borrowed £5 million to replace old streetlights with new LED ones.
Even with this significant extra investment, the repair of all road defects must be prioritised, they cannot all be fixed at once.
Key services provided
Our Highway Services is responsible for maintaining the following assets.
- 660km (410 miles) of carriageway
- 1,200km (745 miles) of footway
- 330km (211 miles) of Public Rights of Way
- 63 highway bridges (43 road bridges)
- 51 highway retaining walls
- 13 subways
- 42,000 gullies and drains
- 42 culverts (16 passing under roads)
- 21,000 street lighting columns
- 1,200 illuminated traffic signs
- 15,000 (approx) non-illuminated signs, guardrails and street furniture
- 6,000 (approx) street trees
These assets are essential for supporting the day-to-day activities of people, businesses and the local economy.
Spending our limited funds wisely
To resurface every road across the Bury borough would cost at least £300 million, a sum Bury Council simply cannot afford.
Prioritising and allocating funding effectively is crucial to achieving best value.
We do this by:
- Long-term planning (prioritising repairs based on road conditions and usage and taking a proactive approach to prevent more costly repairs in the future).
- Data-driven decisions (utilising detailed data on road conditions to make informed decisions on which are the most critical roads in need of repair)
- Innovative techniques (investing in new machinery and materials to improve efficiency and longevity of repairs)
- Public engagement (encouraging the public to report road issues to help address problems more quickly and efficiently)
- Regular monitoring and evaluation (to ensure funds are being used effectively and adjustments can be made as needed).
This allows us to achieve maximum impact with the limited funds available and maintain better road conditions for our communities.
Criteria
Our top priority is to keep roads safe for all road users. Road defects that are a threat to safety are always prioritised first. Lower risk defects are prioritised consistently against set criteria and inspection date.
- Our highway team identify and prioritise defects for repair via safety inspections carried out across all 660km of adopted roads.
- We inspect our busiest roads (‘A’ roads and those in town centres) every month.
- We inspect link roads every three months.
- We inspect quieter streets (such as estate roads) annually
- Repairs are prioritised based on the risk they pose to road users.
- Emergency repairs are attended to within two hours.
- After inspection, most minor risk repairs are completed within 28 days.
Service impact
With the limited funding we have we are doing the best we can to keep the roads in good repair and make them better for everyone.
Our £30 million, 9-year highway investment programme has helped bridge the funding gap for Bury’s roads, enabling us to deliver additional schemes and essential repairs that would otherwise be unaffordable.
- Over 50 miles (96.5 km) of roads and footways have already benefited from resurfacing or preventative maintenance measures at over 625 roads across the Bury Borough.
- Alongside this, via other funding, around 11,000 potholes are repaired each year.
In addition to improving safety, our long-term investment is helping to reduce the need for costly future repairs - showing that prevention is better than cure.
Highway improvements - in pictures
Partnerships
Bury Council’s Highway Service partners with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), the public body managing and coordinating transport services across Greater Manchester, implementing the region’s transport strategy, including the integrated Bee Network for buses, trams, cycling, walking and wheeling).
Bury Council receives funding from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement to support the ambition by 2040 for half of all daily journeys across Greater Manchester to be made by public transport, walking, wheeling or cycling. This funding must be spent on what it was provided for, it can’t be spent on anything else.
Investing in adaptations to our highway network means more people can choose greener, healthier ways to travel. Adopting a healthier, more active lifestyle, benefits us and our planet for future generations.
While some may view investment in bus lanes, cycle routes and sustainable travel infrastructure as unnecessary, it is a vital step toward creating a more efficient, cleaner, safer and greener transport network for everyone.
Future plans and developments
Bury Council continues to invest in maintaining and improving the highway network, one of Bury’s most valuable assets.
- Each year we invest around £11.5 million in our roads to better control the number of pothole repairs we need to carry out.
- We spend in the region of £3.5 million per year on highway resurfacing schemes that restore the road surface to a new condition, lasting up to 20 years.
- We spend in the region of £1 million per year on less costly and less disruptive preventative maintenance works which extend the life of a road by about 10 years, longer on less busy roads.
More information
Find out more about highways and our work to #KeepBuryMoving.