Firm looking after borough roads celebrate first year in business

The firm now looking after the borough’s highways and engineering services celebrated their first anniversary this week.

Via East Midlands was set up to provide highways and fleet management services across the county – including Gedling borough- and is the first highways joint venture of its kind to be developed in the UK.

It took over managing services provided by Nottinghamshire County Council in July 2016 under a ten-year contract, which is extendable for a further five years. It provides a range of highways and engineering services including design consultancy, construction, environmental management and fleet services.

In its first year of operation, Via undertook over 35,000 road and pothole repairs in the county and trained over 13,500 of Nottinghamshire’s young people in road safety.

Its school crossing patrols made over 60,000 crossings, while the energy efficient lighting scheme implemented in partnership with Nottinghamshire County Council saved a staggering 11,000,000kwh of electricity, resulting in £1.3m of savings per year.

Via Managing Director Doug Coutts, hailed the achievements of the organisation to date: “Via’s first year of operation has been a huge success, both in delivering services to the residents of Nottinghamshire and external commercial customers.

“The transition of services from Nottinghamshire County Council has been seamless and we are delighted to have continued our great relationship with officers, members, residents and road users.

He added: “I’m extremely pleased with what we have achieved and it would not have been possible without our great team of staff across the county.”

Councillor John Cottee, Chairman of Nottinghamshire County Council’s Communities and Place Committee commented: “Having a well-maintained, safe highways network is of course an essential service for our road users and residents so we are pleased with how working arrangements have been going so far. And with our recent £1m roads investment, we hope to make even bigger improvements for our residents and businesses.

“Our Council staff work closely with Via East Midlands staff to offer the best mix of skills and expertise necessary to deliver a good quality network while providing the best value for money for Nottinghamshire taxpayers.”