Our plans for highways maintenance for 2026-27
In 2026/27, Devon County Council will deliver a balanced programme of highway maintenance, supported by additional Council investment, focused on preserving asset condition, improving resilience and providing value for money.
- Apply preventative carriageway treatments, including surface dressing and micro asphalt, to approximately 655 km of carriageway to extend asset life and reduce future maintenance costs.
- Resurface approximately 36 km of carriageway on strategic and locally important routes.
- Apply preventative footway treatment to approximately 36 km of footway to extend asset life and reduce future maintenance costs.
- Deliver targeted resilience patching and drainage improvements to strengthen vulnerable parts of the network and improve resilience to severe weather.
- Deliver risk-based investment across bridges, street lighting, traffic signals, cycleways and public rights of way, helping to maintain a safe, reliable and resilient network.
- Continue year-round safety inspections, pothole repairs, winter service (gritting), vegetation management, gully cleansing, drainage maintenance, road marking renewal and other cyclical maintenance activities.
Together, these activities support Devon’s long-term asset management approach and help maintain a safe, resilient and serviceable network for residents and businesses.
Full list of planned carriageway and footway works
The dashboard below provides an interactive map and table showing currently planned carriageway and footway maintenance works for 2026/27. This is a live programme and may be updated throughout the year to reflect changing priorities, funding availability, coordination with utility works, road space constraints, weather events and other operational considerations.
The map and table focus on planned carriageway and footway maintenance activities and does not include all highway maintenance works undertaken by the Council. Other activities, such as bridge maintenance, drainage improvements, road restraint barriers, street lighting, traffic signals, public rights of way works and reactive repairs, are not shown. Routine patching works are also excluded, except where preparatory patching forms part of a planned preventative maintenance treatment.
How decisions are made on our maintenance plans
Devon County Council applies a risk-based asset management approach to planned highway maintenance programmes, targeting investment where it delivers the greatest benefit.
For carriageways, priority is given to classified and strategic routes due to their role in supporting traffic movement, economic activity and connectivity. This reflects a network hierarchy approach, recognising that it is not possible to maintain all roads to the same standard within available funding.
Programmes are developed using asset condition data, safety risk (inspection and defect information), and local intelligence. Interventions are timed to achieve best value, with a strong focus on preventative treatments that extend asset life and reduce whole-life cost.
Works are coordinated and combined where possible to maximise efficiency and minimise disruption. A balanced programme protects key routes while maintaining safety, access and serviceability across the wider network. The principles of a risk-based approach are applied across all asset groups, supported by asset-specific data to enable consistent, data-led decision making.