Northumberland County Council manages one of the largest and most diverse road networks in England, with 3,200 miles of roads, 1,600 miles of footways, and thousands of assets ranging from streetlights to drainage infrastructure. The Highways service is staffed by 398 people across four operational areas, including 12 inspectors on the ground.
Faced with growing public demand and legacy systems, the council needed a connected, scalable asset management solution that could help it manage increasing pressure, enable transparency, and modernise operational delivery.
By implementing Causeway’s asset management solutions — including Causeway Asset Management for operational delivery and Causeway Strategic Asset Management for long-term planning — they’ve created a joined-up system that supports both daily service delivery and strategic investment decisions.
The Challenge: Migration from Mayrise
The council’s digital transformation began with the replacement of Mayrise, a legacy platform embedded across more than 200 users. The transition to CausewayOne Asset Management (formally Causeway Alloy), began pre-COVID and went live in May 2023 alongside integrations with FixMyStreet and GovNotify.
Key challenges:
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Data siloes made cross-team working difficult
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24,000+ highway reports per year managed with minimal visibility
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Rising pressure from residents, councillors and insurers
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Disconnected workflows slowed reporting and claims handling
"Everything was slow, reactive and disjointed — we knew we had to act and get smarter with how we connected data." — Kris Westerby, Head of Highways, Northumberland
"We wanted a single source of truth — one system that connected everyone and made live data available at every level."
Watch the full migration story below
The Solution
Northumberland uses CausewayOne Asset Management to manage all operational activity across highways and drainage, including inspections, public reporting, reactive repairs, and winter service.
Causeway Horizons supports long-term planning by consolidating data from multiple sources including Alloy, Road AI, and FixMyStreet - helping to prioritise spend, shape a three-year programme, and support funding bids.
The two systems are connected via shared data flows:
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Operational data from CausewayOne Asset Management (defects, inspections, FixMyStreet) feeds into Causeway Horizons
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Strategic modelling outputs in Causeway Horizons influence scheme prioritisation and field decisions
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Live asset maps and dashboards enable collaboration across teams
"It’s not just one team using Alloy anymore — everyone’s on it, and that’s how we’ve built the single source of truth."
Operational excellence: doing more with less
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Public reports quadrupled (from 25k to 100k+) with no extra staff
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92% response rate to FixMyStreet reports, even during winter
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Automated triaging, routing and task updates frees up inspectors to focus on delivery
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Claim report creation reduced from days to minutes
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Insurance claims down 76% since implementation
"We can now build a full claims report in five minutes. That used to take days. The data is already there and the system does the legwork.”
Kris Westerby, Head of Highways, Northumberland
Public engagement: seamless & transparent
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60% of reports now submitted via digital self-serve
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Residents receive automatic status updates via FixMyStreet or GovNotify
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Mapping and photo uploads help reduce repeat queries and boost confidence
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Policy-based templates clarify response actions and manage expectations
"It was scary going fully transparent, but we committed to it. Now residents and councillors can see exactly what’s happening in real time."
Data & reporting impact
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Horizons used to create a 3-year LTP programme
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Real-time operational data feeds into strategic planning
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Used data to secure £2.5m structural patching and £1m drainage funding
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Asset and defect scores visualised in dashboards and stakeholder reports
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Teams use mobile devices to switch layers on/off in the field to see schemes and coordinate works
"We used the data to show scrutiny panels exactly what was happening. That evidence helped us unlock extra investment."
The Results
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76% reduction in insurance claims: Enabled by faster, automated reporting and a single-source audit trail, allowing the team to create claim reports in under five minutes.
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53% year-on-year reduction in reported issues: Improved response times and better information up front has halved monthly report volumes from 778 to 365.
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92% response rate to 52,000 annual reports: Even during severe winter conditions, Northumberland’s digital systems ensured high-speed handling of public issues.
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£3.5m in new funding secured: Data-led insight and dashboards helped the council unlock £2.5m for structural patching and £1m for drainage and maintenance.
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100% digital handling of reports and workflows: From FixMyStreet to GovNotify and Power BI, every stage of the reporting and resolution journey is now connected and automated.
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Cross-service adoption underway: Causeway’s solutions are already in active use across highways and drainage, with wider rollout to winter service, street lighting, and waste teams in progress.
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Team-led innovation: Staff across departments have embraced the system, developing their own boards, templates and workflows — enabling greater visibility, ownership and continuous improvement.
"It’s all about that one source of truth, so everyone can see what’s available to them. In the past they wouldn’t have been able to see that — but now they’ve got timely information at their fingertips."
Kris Westerby, Head of Highways, Northumberland
Looking ahead
Northumberland plans to extend Causeway solutions across:
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Capital delivery schemes
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Street lighting
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Waste management
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Planning and flood management
Their goal is a fully integrated, map-driven model where every team shares data and acts from a single, live view of the network.
"We're not there yet — but we're on the journey, and we know exactly where we're heading."
Future Highways Summit 2026
Want to hear the full story? Watch Kris Westerby’s keynote from the Future Highways event, where he shares Northumberland’s digital transformation journey and the impact of connected asset management.
