Blogs Highways Highlight

Broughton Lane, Aylesbury, fell victim to the poor weather and multiple named storms throughout autumn and winter 2023/24. Every time it rained, Broughton Lane had to be closed for safety reasons, causing disruption to road users and the constant flooding was causing the road surface to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Our officers identified the continuous risk of flooding and the impact this brought to the local area so, as a top priority, worked to solve the drainage issues by designing a package of works.

The first task was to liaise with the Environment Agency (EA), local developers and our Highways Alliance Partners, Balfour Beatty Living Places (BBLP). It is common for our officers to liaise with multiple local and national bodies before carrying out works, and there’s usually a wide range of factors areas which need to be considered. For example, due to high river levels, bird nesting season and EA permitting rules, work on Broughton Lane was unable to start until September. Fortunately, this gave BBLP’s operations team time to select the best contractors for the job, preparing packages of work well in advance and enabled them to keep a clear overview throughout. Alongside BBLP, our contractors Flowline and D&H Saunders were instrumental in delivering the scheme.

We were able to restore the stream, known as West End ditch to 100% capacity by cleaning 180m of the stream blocked by fly-tipping, and dredging (removing sediments and debris from the bottom of bodies of water) 350m of the stream to Bearbrook. We also completed deep carriageway repair work and resurfacing to various damaged areas, repaired the eroded bank as well as to 150m of new and repaired kerbs and gullies, and upgraded the culvert under the road to further support drainage.

The construction phase of the project was a great example of collaborative working, with all contractors involved demonstrating excellent teamwork. The work was delivered to a high standard, on-time and when additional work, including haunching, patching and signing was identified whilst on site this was also addressed within the time scales set out.

The positive results are clear to see, as even with the unprecedented volumes of rain experienced since, Broughton Lane has remained open and has not flooded once.