Wrexham Council aim for full cost recovery from drivers who damage highway infrastructure

Drivers who cause damage to highway infrastructure in Wrexham during collisions could be more likely to face charges as the local authority looks to balance its budget.

Under UK legislation there are a number of circumstances in which highways authorities can look to recover costs for damage caused by drivers.

This includes damage to roads, signs, barriers and other infrastructure, with drivers being obliged to report this themselves or face punishment.

While such legal provisions have been in existence for some time, Wrexham Council has revealed it is looking to achieve full cost recovery in such cases more proactively in a bid to help balance its budget.

The latest budget forecast position for the financial year of 2023/24 includes £155,000 worth of mitigation measures in relation to highways maintenance.

The document, which will be presented to executive board members on Tuesday, highlights a forecasted surplus of just over £355,000 in this area as a whole.

An explanatory note contained within the report states: “The forecast outturn position includes £155k mitigation measures relating to increase of charges for license and permit fees, recovery of costs from RTC insurance claims and ensuring full cost recovery, along with the use of internal resource on footways programme of work.

“There continues to be forecast pressures in staff costs due to the pay award and higher contractor and material costs driven by inflation, along with additional costs in responsive repairs due to a higher number of events caused by winter weather and storm/high wind events.

“However, these pressures are offset by efficiencies that have been made over the last period (£33k), the planned use of earmarked reserves and by mitigation measures.”

During a media briefing held this week, Wrexham.com asked why full cost recovery from road traffic collisions had not been pursued as vigorously previously.

In response, council leader Mark Pritchard said: “What we’re going to do is to is to really go out of our way to chase any claim we can now if you have an incident where damage has been done to the highways, to barriers or lampposts etc.

“If that individual is caught at the scene, we will progress with it. What we want to do is to really spend the time to do some investigations and I think it makes sense.

“I’m happy to support any proposals from lead members and the officers to generate income.

“In some cases, it will be very difficult because if individuals have left the scene it’s going to be difficult to progress that.

“But we will make a massive effort to find out who’s done that and to claim through the insurance.”

Deputy council leader David A Bithell also commented on the proposal.

He said: “To be open and honest with you, we do normally try and recover costs but we need to do better.

“We have got a cost recovery policy that we introduced back in 2016 and you’ll see that everything that we are trying to do going forward is about cost recovery.

“There’s a lot of emphasis now on claiming our costs back, whether it’s staff time, manpower, resources, or whatever it is.

“We just need to be really smart and there’s a big piece of work being undertaken about cost recovery and charges, making sure we get value for money as well.”