These cover a wide range of work that includes the following:

• Maintain the roads to a good standard and restore deteriorating roads back to nationally accepted standards
• Provision of and maintenance of road signage for road identification and driver assistance such as intersection signage, traffic signals, and motorist warning signage
• Provision of lighting on urban streets and on a number of rural intersections
• Road marking for traffic management and to assist drivers with traffic flow directions
• Accident investigations and identifying and completing improvements
• Emergency activity on roads such as closure during fire hazard problems, reopening roads after snow events and gritting roads during periods of frost
• Repair and replacement of road signs etc where these are damaged through accidents or by vandalism

To complete this work Council has issued a number of contracts to complete maintenance work to required standards.  Sealed roads deteriorate very gradually and will retain their smoothness and surface stability for long time.  Failures tend to be localised in smaller areas and these areas attended to when the failure occurs.  Unsealed roads, by their very nature, commence to deteriorate immediately after grading and it is not practical to have these at a consistently high standard all the time.  The contractor is required to grade these on a cycle that will provide a good level of service without letting the roads deteriorate to an unacceptable level.

The level of usage on all district roads is increasing and some areas are showing a marked increase in traffic (including heavy vehicles) that is putting considerable pressure on the network to remain at a satisfactory standard.

All roads and bridges in the district are regularly inspected to monitor their condition and the effectiveness of the maintenance work.  Bridges are structurally inspected by a qualified consultant on a three year cycle.