We are responsible for around 5,500 miles of roads, mostly made up of:
- 690 miles of A roads
- 488 miles of B roads
- 1,371 miles of C roads
- 2,550 miles of unclassified roads
- 233 miles of unmetalled 'green' lanes
To enable a risk-based maintenance strategy for road maintenance each road is given a maintenance hierarchy based on its function and use.
Nine hierarchies determine how often a road is inspected and the timescale for reactive maintenance:
- Major Road Network - Roads with strategic importance linking areas across the UK.
- Hierarchy 1 - Major long distance, inter-urban routes mainly used for long distance industrial and commercial traffic.
- Hierarchy 2 - Inter-urban routes handling substantial flows of long-distance traffic between adjacent towns in and out of the county.
- Hierarchy 3 - Local roads which provide a good quality connection between main settlements (population of 500 plus) to higher hierarchy roads.
- Hierarchy 4 - Classified roads linking smaller villages and settlements to higher hierarchy roads.
- Hierarchy 5 - Unclassified roads linking smaller villages and settlements to higher hierarchy roads.
- Hierarchy 6 - Urban and rural roads that primarily provide access to residential properties or agricultural land.
- Hierarchy 7 - Minor paved rural and small roads, which include roads overgrown by vegetation.
- Hierarchy 8 - All remaining unclassified roads which are not paved.