In 2025, the Department for Transport (DfT) introduced a new requirement for all local highway authorities to publish an annual report detailing how they manage, fund and deliver highway maintenance activities.
This initiative follows recommendations made in a 2024 National Audit Office report on the condition and maintenance of local roads in England. It aims to provide greater transparency and consistency in how highway authorities operate, while helping both central and local government better understand the condition of the road network.
For Milton Keynes, this reporting process offers an opportunity to demonstrate how highway maintenance is managed and delivered. It also enables comparison with authorities across the country through national benchmarking, helping to identify best practice, drive innovation, improve efficiency and support higher standards of service for residents and road users.
The full report may be viewed here and includes details on:
- the extent of our highway network
- how much we spend on maintenance, and how it is funded
- how we balance preventative and reactive maintenance, including pothole repairs
- overall condition of local roads
- future plans, both this year and in future
- innovation, efficiency and best practice, including climate change adaptation
How we are managing our highways assets
We are committed to delivering a modern, efficient and resilient highway network by combining industry best practice with innovative approaches to asset management.
The Council also has key objectives and targets for sustainability and lowering our carbon emissions and we include these aims within our asset management.
By combining data-driven decision-making, trialling new technologies and learning from successful initiatives across the sector, we aim to get best value from our budget and investment, improve network condition and provide a safe, reliable service for all highway users. Continuous improvement, collaboration and innovation are central to our approach, helping us meet current challenges while planning effectively for the future.
Find out more about what we are doing in these key areas below:
Resilience
Highway resilience is essential to keeping Milton Keynes moving safely and efficiently. As the city continues to grow and the impacts of severe weather, increasing traffic levels and ageing infrastructure place greater demands on the network, Milton Keynes City Council is focused on building a resilient highway asset base that can adapt to future challenges. Through planned maintenance, risk-based decision-making and investment in long-term asset management, we work to ensure our roads, footways, structures and drainage systems remain reliable, sustainable and capable of supporting residents, businesses and visitors both now and in the future.
Innovation
Innovation plays a vital role in ensuring Milton Keynes’ highway network remains safe, efficient and ready to meet future demands. We are exploring new technologies, materials and ways of working to improve highway maintenance and asset management.
Our Highways Inspectors have been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) as part of their statutory driven inspections for some time, helping to provide us with detailed surface condition data which is used to plan future surfacing programmes.
Decarbonisation
Decarbonising the highway network is a key part of Milton Keynes City Council’s commitment to achieving a more sustainable future. Through our asset management approach, we aim to support the city’s wider net zero ambitions while continuing to deliver a safe, reliable and efficient transport network for residents, businesses and visitors.
Our LED streetlight upgrade has reduced our energy usage significantly and this type of lantern requires less maintenance than the older, sodium ones.