We are responsible for over 2,500 miles of footpaths (also known as footways) made up of:
- 2,592 miles of bituminous (Tarmac) construction
- 43 miles of block paved
- 54 miles of flagged footways
- 35 miles of concrete footways
To enable a risk-based maintenance strategy for footway maintenance, it is essential that each footway is given a maintenance hierarchy based on its function and use. These hierarchies determine how often a footway is inspected and the timescale for reactive maintenance, such as repairing faults.
There are four hierarchies for footways.
- Hierarchy 1 – footways in the main shopping street and pedestrianised shopping streets in the urban area of a town.
- Hierarchy 2 – footways along main pedestrian routes just outside the main shopping area of towns. Link footways linking main shopping streets with other areas like car parks. Local shopping streets in settlements with 10 or more shops within 100m.
- Hierarchy 3 – footways linking local access footways through urban areas and busy rural footways
- Hierarchy 4 - footways associated with low usage, such as estate roads to the main routes, cul-de-sacs adjacent to local access roads, and rural footways between villages.