Year: 2013

Central Government Spend on Transport in England

Within Central Government in England, responsibility for ensuring the country has a good transport infrastructure lies with the Department for Transport.  With an annual spend of around £12 billion, the Department for Transport ranked 11th amongst Central Government Departments in 2010-11 and 2011-12, representing just 2% of the total central government spend.  See post on …

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Central Government Spending in England

Thanks to some great work at the Guardian, in their datablog Government Spending by Department  2011-12: get the data it is now easy to see how nearly £700 billion of public money is spent by Central Government Departments. Here’s an interactive version of their work to explore (available also on the link above): As the Guardian …

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Introduction to Local Roads

In England, Scotland and Wales, local government is responsible for all roads that fall outside the jurisdiction of the Strategic Road Network (explained in the introductory post on Motorways and Trunk Roads). Local Road Classification Principal ‘A’ Roads – (green coloured signposts, green or red colouring in road maps and atlases) B Roads – (white …

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Introduction to Motorways and Trunk Roads

Motorways and Trunk roads in Great Britain, often referred to together as the Strategic Road Network, are the key routes across the country that play such a vital role in keeping the country moving. Because of their strategic importance, they are managed centrally by each country through single bodies / organisations: England: Highways Agency Scotland: …

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Road Length in Great Britain 2012

Valuable baseline data such as road length should be easier to access and understand, so that local highways authorities, Councillors, private sector service providers and the public can use it to drive greater collaboration and value for money in local government highways services. This is the first in a series of articles exploring the national …

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Highways Industry Publications

Want to keep up to date with the latest thinking?  Need to find a document quickly?  Know roughly when it was published, or its Title? Here’s is an  searchable compilation of the key publications relevant to the local government highways sector, complete with hyperlink to each document.  Starting with Sir Michael Latham’s ‘Constructing The Team’ …

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Highways Industry Conferences

Conferences are ideal opportunities to learn and network with others, yet with budgets being cut and the need for all of us to demonstrate value for money, determining the most valuable events to attend can be tricky. To help you plan which events you need to attend, here’s a timeline of the major industry conferences …

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Gritter Twitter

I think #grittertwitter is a great name for a Twitter hashtag, but I wonder how many councils use it? Do people find it helpful? As a first step, I thought I’d create a simple twitter search to see how it’s being used. Tweets about “#grittertwitter”