Cumbria County Council’s Highways Service has completed a £4m package of surface dressing projects across the county.
Since May, teams have carried out 98 individual projects, covering over 100 miles of road, equivalent to a million square metres of road surface.
The works have been completed on schedule, despite the challenges presented by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Strict measures were in place to ensure the works could be carried out safely.
With almost 5,000 miles of highways to maintain in Cumbria, it is important that we maintain the network with treatments that provide the best value for money. Surface dressing prolongs the life of the surface layer of the road, which delays the need for expensive solutions such as full road reconstruction.
Surface dressing extends the life of the road by sealing the surface, thereby preventing the road surface from deteriorating and delaying the development of potholes. It also helps to waterproof the structural layers of the road and improves resistance against the freeze / thaw weather cycle.
Loose chippings from the surface dressing projects are collected and returned to a central stockpile to be recycled and re-used the following year. This year, approx. 10,000 tonnes of chippings have been re-processed.
The value of works in each district are as follows:
| Allerdale | 654,000 |
| Barrow | 237,000 |
| Carlisle | 730,000 |
| Copeland | 502,000 |
| Eden | 936,000 |
| South Lakeland | 943,000 |
Cllr Keith Little, Cumbria County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways, said: “This essential package of road maintenance works has improved almost 100 sections of routes across the county, making journeys much smoother for drivers and extending the life of the road.
“We understand the importance of the road network in Cumbria and the surface dressing works were coordinated to minimise disruption and delays, whilst also working through the challenges presented by Covid-19.
“I’d like to thank the local communities and drivers for their patience and understanding during periods of congestion as our teams delivered this package of works, worth £4m. I’d also like to thank the teams and engineers involved in the works for their hard work, often in challenging conditions.”
