Extra £4m approved to improve highway drainage through repair programme
An extra £4 million has been approved to repair and replace Oxfordshire’s broken gullies over the next two years to improve drainage and reduce flooding.
The programme was agreed by Oxfordshire County Council thanks to information gathered during a project to inspect and clean every highway gully in the county last year.
There are around 147,000 gullies across Oxfordshire. In April 2025, the council launched a programme to inspect every gully and catchpit in the county over 12 months.
Working with partners M Group and Drainline, all gullies were inspected and 135,254 were cleaned at least once – around 92 per cent of the total.
Some could not be cleaned, despite repeat visits, due to parked cars, or issues such as seized lids, and have been flagged for follow-up visits.
Others were found to have more complex defects and have been added to the latest programme for further investigation and repair, confirmed by Councillor Liz Leffman, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways Construction and Repairs, on Thursday.
The additional £4m funding – taking the total investment to £9.42m – will help increase the number of drainage infrastructure repairs and investigations over the next two years and ensure that routine gully cleansing work is as effective as possible.
Cllr Leffman said: “Given the wet winter we had last year, and the extensive flooding that it caused, it’s important to maintain and clear gullies and make sure that broken infrastructure is replaced.
“We have a lot of broken gullies, due to many years of under investment. We know that by repairing them we will significantly improve drainage, particularly over the winter period. That’s why we have invested £4m over the next two years on gully infrastructure.
“This work will help to minimise network disruption, protect communities and property, and support safe, reliable travel. The programme will also prioritise preventative interventions, reduce reactive maintenance costs and strengthen our ability to respond to increasingly severe weather events.”
The programme will also see higher risk areas cleaned annually and others on a two-year cycle. Priorities are based on risk, using data from last year’s countywide programme, flood mapping and flood investigation reports.
The 2025-26 programme removed around 2,346 tonnes of waste from the county’s gullies.
The material was processed through a zero to landfill specialist waste recycling facility, where water was treated and discharged if not required for the wash plant, and sand and aggregate was recovered and re-sold.
Rubbish was sent to a materials recovery facility, followed by recycling or energy recovery, and nothing was knowingly sent to landfill.
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