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Making Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ safer, stronger and more sustainable

It’s been another busy year for Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ’s Highways and Transport teams. We’ve worked around the clock to keep roads safe, improve travel choices, and prepare our county for the future. From resurfacing roads to rolling out greener buses, our focus has been on making Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ safer, stronger, and more sustainable.

Improving our roads and pavements

From tackling 35,000 potholes to cleaning 115,000 drains, our teams have been busy out and about across the county. They have dealt with 6,951 emergencies and during the winter months our gritters travelled more than 100,000 miles to keep our road network moving safely. This year we have also added two new mini-gritters to our fleet to treat roads that are harder to access with larger vehicles.

Over 85 miles of roads and 15 miles of pavements were resurfaced from April to October alone. Making our highway network stronger, and helping to reduce the number of potholes forming. We’re also fixing potholes on average in two and a half days, quicker than we need to. The use of new video and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology helps us spot them and speed up repairs.

Over one million road markings were refreshed, including white and yellow lines. Parking bays and over 5,000 signs, railings and bollards were repaired and cleaned.

More ways to get around by bus

Passenger numbers on local buses continued to rise, helping to reduce congestion and emissions. This year we expanded the popular Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ Connect on-demand bus service to cover Reigate and Banstead and countryside sites. Over 170,000 passengers have now used Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ Connect service since its launch in 2022.

19,000 young people aged 20 and under, signed up to the Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ ‘LINK’ card, giving them 50% off bus journeys across the county, taking trips to 100, 000 every month.

Also this year, we expanded our hydrogen bus fleet to 54 buses. Giving Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ the biggest fleet in the UK. We introduced the Aira Explorer app trial to help blind and partially sighted residents to travel around twelve railway and bus stations.

Creating a Greener future

Responding to climate change remains a top priority. This year, we finished our programme to upgrade every single one of the county’s 89,000 streetlights to energy-efficient LEDs. This is saving millions of pounds whilst also reducing carbon emissions.

An additional £1.5m was allocated to grass cutting this year to ensure better access to roads and pavements. Helping to prevent trip hazards, and enhance the appearance of the public highway.

Keeping school children safe

Ñý¾«¶¯Âþ’s first ‘School Street’ opened at Farnham Heath End School this year. Helping to reduce air pollution and improve road safety around the school gates during the busiest times of the day.

An additional £3m was also invested to improve road safety measures around 22 schools, making it safer to walk, cycle and wheel to school.

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