Who is responsible to repair and maintain roads The department of Infrastructure and Environment (IE) owns the main road network in Jersey and is responsible to maintain it.
By-roads are owned and maintained by parishes. Some other roads are privately owned by, for example:
Ports of Jersey Jersey Property Holdings housing associations You can find out who owns or administers a road on the
road information map .
Assessing roads for repair or maintenance We maintain our roads in 2 ways:
planned maintenance reactive maintenance Planned maintenance We undertake a condition survey of the entire main road network every 3 years and develop a 5-year planned maintenance programme using the score.
You can find details of the next 5 year programme on
planned highway maintenance .
Each road is given a condition score based on the condition of the carriageway. This determines the type of treatment needed to repair or maintain the road.
Red Reconstruction or resurfacing Amber Surface treatment Yellow Patch repairs Green No repair
When the repair or maintenance work can be done depends on, for example:
budget traffic impact planned utilities and developer works location proximity to other schemes and events Reactive maintenance
We also have inspectors who regularly check all roads on the main road network.
They assess the carriageway between condition surveys or do extra inspections when issues are reported.
Issues our inspectors identify that need repair are fixed as reactive maintenance.
The inspection manual provides guidance on how they should carry out these inspections.
Reporting road issues
How we plan the maintenance programme Planning maintenance and repairs of our roads, footways and cycleways is important to:
reduce accidents protect the public minimise disruption prevent economic loss If we don’t maintain our roads, we need to do more reactive work which increases:
repair costs disruption for the public disruption to businesses and lost revenue To keep our roads in their current condition, we need to resurface or reconstruct around 10 km each year. We are not meeting this level currently because of budget and road space limitations.
Utility companies manage emergency works like burst water mains or gas leaks. These can also delay our planned projects.
The planned maintenance programme Our 5-year programme identifies resurfacing and reconstruction projects we can carry out and when.
Roads have a 3 or 5-year embargo after works are completed. We consult utility companies and developers when planning so they can carry out their works before the start of embargo periods .
Once projects are agreed, we develop them by working closely with:
parishes other departments and teams, such as: Road Works Permitting Environmental Health Inclusive Mobility utility companies such as: JEC Jersey Water telecoms providers contractors and developers emergency services Liberty Bus Works coordination is done by the Roadworks Permitting Team using Trafficworx.
Find details of the next 5 years planned highway maintenance .
Planning when projects are carried out When maintaining roads and infrastructure, we aim to:
choose lower traffic periods spread projects across the Island minimise disruption keep everyone safe For this reason, many of our projects are done during school holidays as:
overall traffic is reduced bus routes remain unchanged children don’t all arrive at the same time We assess each project’s impact to choose the best time to carry out the work. We typically schedule 1 project per period.
Seasonal project January and February School route February half term, Easter holidays and summer holidays Surface treatment May and June Low impact September On Victoria Avenue, Esplanade or La Route de la Liberation October half term Town area 1 project a year, period varies
We use 24-hour road closures to make major works:
quicker safer better value for money They remove the need for workers to set-up every day, shorten project durations and give more certainty on the completion.
Our largest projects take place in the summer because days are longest and traffic is lowest.
Road closures also keep workers, vehicles and the public safely separated from large machinery on our narrow roads.
Reconstruction Reconstruction is used when the surface condition of the road and its foundations are beyond repair.
It requires the excavation and replacement of the entire carriageway and its foundations up to a depth of 240 millimetres.
It provides a new carriageway which will last for a long-time but it’s a long process which:
uses a large amount of material creates lots of waste requires lots of asphalt to be manufactured It’s also extremely disruptive to road users, residents and businesses.
Reconstruction places a 5-year embargo on the carriageway. Find more information on
embargo periods .
Resurfacing We do resurfacing works when the road’s surface needs repair but its foundations are still in good condition.
Resurfacing requires the excavation and replacement of the carriageway’s surface course up to a depth of 50 millimetres. We undertake localised foundation repairs in advance of to remedy defect below the surface course.
If the road’s foundations are in a good condition resurfacing provides a new carriageway which will last for a long time. Compared to reconstruction, resurfacing uses up to 40% less material and creates up to 40% less waste. It also reduces disruption for road users and businesses.
Resurfacing places a 3-year embargo on the carriageway. Find more information on
embargo periods .
Surface treatments Surface treatments are used when the condition of the carriageway starts to decline. In Jersey we use micro asphalt as the main surface treatment.
It’s a very quick process and reduces the impact on road users, residents, and businesses. Surface treatments use between 6% to 15% of the material reconstruction uses and produces minimal waste.
It’s used to prevent water from entering the carriageway and renew its surface texture which:
extends the life duration of the carriageway saves costs and materials produces minimal waste reduces disruption For this type of repair we lay an aggregate on top of the existing surface. This is made of a specialist bituminous emulsion and is 15 millimetres deep.
Surface treatments put a 3 years embargo on the carriageway. Find more information on
embargo periods .
We can also undertake localised patching in advance of surface treatments to correct defects with the carriageway foundations.
Micro asphalt takes less time to lay and extends the life of the existing road surface. Before we apply the micro asphalt, we use patches and panels to rebuild any small areas of the road.
VIDEO
Patch repairs Patch repairs are quick and inexpensive. These are often used to fix small areas or sections which do not need a full surface maintenance. This is often used for potholes.
This is a reactive activity when we identify issues with the road condition outside of our planned maintenance or an issue is reported.
gov.je