Local Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund

Essex County Council has submitted a Local Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund bid in relation to High Street & Market Place in Braintree.

Braintree Town centre High Street and Market Place was subject to reconstruction in the early 1990’s, due to it being within the conservation area the road was reconstructed with a semi rigid carriageway construction with Tegular setts. High Street is a 3m wide running lane with two adjacent footways paved in modular paving again on a semi rigid construction. The High Street and Market Place are used solely for Buses, Disabled parking and deliveries. The existing carriageway has rutted to an unacceptable state, due to a catastrophic failure of the sub base and deformation of the carriageway, which in turn has led to the collapse and deterioration of drainage lateral connections and failures of the carrier drainage. Gullies have also collapsed due to failure of the lateral connections.

Fairfield Road serves as a one way street giving access to the Town Centre and Manor Street Bus Station; it also serves several small businesses as well as a limited number of on-street parking spaces. The carriageway is flexible construction and the surface course is suffering with longitudinal and transvers spalling of joints and failure of the surface course due to service trenches and rutting. The footways are of limited width and are a mixture of rigid, semi rigid and flexible construction. However due to the deterioration of the surface finishes and service trenches the footways are in a poor surface condition and in need of reconstruction.

Braintree District Council is currently about to commence on the redevelopment of Manor Street with major investment from external developers for both Hotel, retail and residential located in Manor Street, this will bring with it obvious benefits for the town in terms of foot traffic and additional night and daytime economy opportunities. Braintree District Council is also planning a £1.6m Manor Street Bus Station investment as part of the Manor Street / Public realm improvements. These works are currently planned to commence in Q4 of 2019-20 and complete by 2021. It would therefore make sense for the opportunities to be embraced by the inclusion of a series of maintenance works to the carriageways, footways and cycleways and drainage improvements within the surrounding area. These improvement works could be undertaken promptly and delivered at the same time as the redevelopment therefore increasing overall impact of the works and outcomes. This would then maximise the potential of the redevelopment and revitalise the town centre with a package that seeks to complete and open just prior to the development. 

For further information please see the application and appedices in the document section below.