Following the inquest into the death of Susan Norman, Cornwall Council is changing the way it manages and maintains the road network in Cornwall.

Susan Norman, 68, died when tonnes of mud and rubble fell on her flat in Looe in March 2013, and the inquest concluded that Cornwall Council should have been aware of the threat she faced.

The inquest identified a number of specific issues, including the failure of the council to consider the evidence of historic landslips and the independent report highlighting risk, alongside listening to complaints from local residents.

The revised Highway Maintenance Manual, which will be introduced from April 1, follows a comprehensive review of the council's highway service.

The new manual has been approved by members at today's meeting of the cabinet, and aims to address many issues and set out new processes for assessing and prioritising information.

This includes new processes for inspecting retaining walls and embankments which could affect adjacent landowners, with new protocols developed for the authority's building control service to ensure that concerns over privately owned structures such as walls are responded to quickly and proportionately.

The review also looked at effectiveness of the communication between the public and the council, and between the different council services and teams.

This identified that there were numerous routes by which information about highways could come into the council and Cormac, with no one central point of contact currently responsible for prioritising of responding effectively to the queries or problems.

Now the council are setting up a new Cornwall Highways Customer Centre which will handle all queries relating to highways issues, with a new management system to enable enquiries to be prioritised and tracked from the start to the end of the process.

The council will also be working with Cormac to revise the existing contract to make sure that the changes in practise and procedure can be operated efficiently.