Kent County Council’s highways team presented Dartford’s Joint Transportation Board with a two-year forward works programme covering road resurfacing, drainage repairs and street lighting, revealing that more than a dozen structural lamp column replacements across the borough were already overdue.

Kent County Council’s highways team set out the current state of road maintenance, drainage and street lighting work across Dartford borough when the Joint Transportation Board met on 1 September 2026, presenting a two-year forward works programme for 2024/25 and 2025/26.

Overdue street light replacements

The programme revealed that a significant number of structural lamp column and lit signpost replacements — identified as necessary through structural testing of KCC-owned streetlights — had passed their scheduled completion dates. Locations where work was listed as overdue and accepted for completion by September 2026 included Chesterfield Drive (Westhill), Church Hill (Wilmington), Heath Lane (Princes), Highfield Road (Town), London Road (Stone), Pilgrims Way (Brent), Princes Road (Princes), Riverside Way (Joyce Green), The Brent (Newtown), Waldeck Road (Newtown), Wilmot Road (Westhill), Wentworth Drive (Heath), Windsor Drive (Heath), Browning Road (Joyce Green), Farthing Close (Joyce Green), Keyes Road (Joyce Green), Welcome Avenue (Joyce Green), Main Road (Sutton at Hone), and Farnol Road (Littlebrook). Several of those deadlines had originally fallen between November 2025 and February 2026.

A further batch of replacements — on Birchwood Road, Summerhouse Drive, Powder Mill Lane, Lowfield Street, Princes Road, Salmon Street, Marsh Street, Stone Place Road and Church Road — were listed as accepted with completion targeted by December 2026.

Road resurfacing and footway works

On the resurfacing programme, machine resurfacing of Parsonage Lane/Darenth Hill in Sutton at Hone and Darenth was programmed for 5 August 2026, while A225 Main Road in Sutton at Hone from Arnolds Lane to Longmarsh View was programmed for 11 January 2027. A number of other machine resurfacing schemes — including sections of A296 Watling Street, B262 Station Road, A225 Lowfield Street, A296 Princes Road and B260 Green Street Green Road — were listed as completed.

Surface treatment works on roads including Fawkham Avenue (Longfield), Goss Hill (Hawley), New Barn Road (Southfleet), Farnol Road (Dartford), Darenth Road South (Darenth), Summerhouse Drive (Bexley), Foxhounds Lane (Southfleet) and Heathclose Road (Dartford) were planned for spring/summer 2026.

Footway work on Gore Road in Dartford was listed as still to be designed and programmed, while Cedar Drive in Sutton at Hone and Harold Road in Hawley were programmed for 2027/28.

Drainage

The drainage section recorded a large number of completed repairs across the borough, from pipework and gully repairs to ditching work. Outstanding items included drainage pipework repairs on Lawson Road and Bow Arrow Lane, both listed as awaiting programming. Work to resolve flooding near the Marsh Street North Roundabout on Bob Dunn Way was described as completed in outline, but awaiting programming to complete a retaining wall and electrical connection.

Programme caveats

Officers noted that the programme was subject to regular review and could change because of budget allocation, contract rate changes, inflationary pressures, conflicting works or changing priorities. Individual sites could also be revised following engineering assessment, and additional sites could be added if their condition deteriorated rapidly.

The report was presented for members’ information. The council had not published the minutes of the meeting at the time of writing, so the committee’s decision is not yet on the public record.

Sources

Top image: illustrative, computer-generated. Illustrative AI-generated image. This is not a photograph of any real street in Dartford or elsewhere.