RSTA | In with the new – Our next generation

If you’re a part of the Surface Treatment and Highways Maintenance sectors of our industry, you all contribute to maintaining one of our country’s biggest and most important asset.

It is an area of the industry that any individual can be proud of contributing to, yet it seems that the appeal is lacking for the younger generations to join and develop within.

We spoke with Sonny Singh, newly appointed Chairman of the RSTA about his thoughts on the matter, and gained an insight into his vision for the future:

“This is quickly becoming one of the most critical challenges facing our industry. The demand side looks to be growing as local roads require assistance from our sector as surface treatments extend carriageway life in hard times, but with this we need to ensure that the supply side has the necessary people, skills and capacity to deliver this if we want to grow our industry markets respectively as we maintain the network and ultimately improve public safety.

“We are currently seeing vastly experienced professionals leaving the industry and with them, their wealth of knowledge and expertise also disappears; leaving a huge gap in skills and expertise within the market sector.

“We must consider capturing these skills and linking them with younger members of our industry – quality apprenticeships are a must.  From a personal perspective I have been very fortunate to date within my career to be surrounded by vastly experienced individuals who have given me the support, mentoring and encouragement that has enabled me to really make significant developments and improvements in both my industry sector and with the clients whom we work with on a daily basis. We cannot expect younger professionals to really make a significant impact on our industry if they do not understand how the role which they undertake fits into the bigger scheme of things.”

At this point, almost all authorities have now adopted an asset management approach as recommended by the DFT’s Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme (HMEP). We’ve heard from the MP Andrew Jones at the RSTA Annual Conference today regarding the new incentive based element for highways maintenance funding, introduced by the Department for Transport. By the financial year 2018/19 it will represent up to 15% of all funding available to local authority. In order to secure this, Local Authorities must demonstrate continual improvement in efficiency in accordance with the guidelines in HMEP.

In essence, Local Authorities will need to act smarter with less money. Right now – If it’s not efficient, it really is counterproductive.

Sonny explained to us very clearly, “I believe that this can only be achieved together – both Client and Contractor alike.”

When our Surface Treatment processes are being used in the right instances, they truly are the most efficient and cost effective solutions to the challenge we have in front of us. Yet we are still finding blockers to industry in some aspects. Things are not being embraced on the shop floor in the way they should be and we must all work together to ensure our message of adopting innovative products and services is passed on to all of our clients.”

Sonny gave us an example; “I work for a business that undertakes innovative patching works, as well as conventional patching and minor civil works. We are frequently asked to undertake pre-patching ahead of various different surface treatment works (more notably Surface Dressing and Micro Asphalting). We are still asked to undertake conventional patching works on sites which can be easily treated by innovative patching solutions that are quicker, more cost effective, require less traffic management, involve no waste and crucially are a more suited repair technique to the defect at hand.”

So, is it all doom and gloom? Is this skills gap, and increased pressure on smarter LA’s going to prove severely detrimental to the efficiency of our maintenance programmes?

Not necessarily according to Mr Singh:

“I do see a light at the end of the tunnel with regards to this and I believe that as a result of asset management plans now coming into play we are beginning to see a change in procurement processes.

Local Authorities and Clients are now tendering directly out to specialist surface treatment contractors and SME businesses, which allows Clients to better take advantage of the knowledge and experience of contractors, to determine where our highways maintenance techniques really add value and really drive efficiency.”