Pothole Parade

[Tizer]

`Pothole fund: Where £50m is going to fix the roads'
BBC article

[PanBiker]

I noticed the sinking surface water drain cover that I flagged up last week on the LCC reporting site has been marked up with street paint along with numerous other bits along Commercial Street that need attention.

[David Whipp]

Thanks for the update Ian.

The £50m pothole fund has to be a joke. At least six times that amount is needed in Lancashire to meet the backlog in road and pavement repairs. Goodness knows how much it adds up to over the country.

Late last year, together with other county councillors, I was asked to prioritise just two streets or pavements in my area which would be considered for road repairs in this year's repairs programme. After extensive tramping and travelling around West Craven, I got to a shortlist of 10 streets. I was then obliged to choose just two of them for consideration, one of which has been accepted as a high priority for the repairs programme. The rest of them will take their chances if there's any scraps of funding left, but the reality is that they're likely to just get 'interim repairs' that'll fall to bits next winter.

On the positive side, I've managed to get proper repairs ordered for a couple of streets through some windfall funding, and a couple of more major routes (Manchester Road and through Bracewell) are having preventative maintenance (patching and surface dressing) carried out.

All in all though, not a positive outlook for road conditions locally or nationally.

[Stanley]

I think that last sentence is a masterpiece of understatement David! Never, in the history of the public economy, have so many cans been kicked so far down the road by so few. It is so short-sighted, maintenance deferred always leads to larger expenditure later on. Question is how bad can they let it get before they are forced to respond?

[David Whipp]

In Lancashire (and elsewhere), the emphasis has changed from full resurfacing schemes to 'permanent patching' and surface dressing.

Because of the inadequate funding, full resurfacing was leading to the total length of badly deteriorated road increasing each year as the lengths resurfaced fell short of the length of road needing treatment. Each year, the backlog increases.

It's hoped that the switch of large scale patching and surface dressing will result in the highway authority getting on top of repairs. By carrying out less expensive repairs longer lengths of road are treated. The intention is that this will allow inroads into the backlog of repairs.

It'll probably take a decade to find out if this works. It all depends on the length of time the patching/surface dressing schemes last compared to full resurfacing.

I'm sceptical, but prepared to give this a go. It could well be the best way to use the inadequate funding available.

Locally, Skipton Road in Barlick and Bleara Road in Earby were treated in this way (together with all the residential streets on Monkroyd). I'm keeping an eye out for deterioration...

As mentioned in previous post, Manchester Road and Bracewell Lane are the major routes being repaired by this process in the current year.

[Tizer]

I can tell you now that it doesn't work, David...at least where the work is done by Somerset County Highways Dept. They've been taking this patching and surface dressing approach for some years now and the treated areas of road are already breaking up. Where the work is needed the surrounding tarmac is also on its way out even though it may not be visibly so. So they do a patch but then the surrounding area crumbles. Most obvious is the rapid deterioration along the interfaces between patched and unpatched tarmac. Water must get down the interface and we end up with a significant gap...and that's here in a milder climate without much frost, let alone ice.

The holes here are getting so big and numerous that there will soon be serious damage to motor vehicles and possibly even injury to cyclists and motor cyclists. Night time driving will become particularly dangerous. I wonder what will happen then? Are the councils insured against being sued by affected motorists? And for those of us who live in villages with no street lights the holes are a danger to pedestrians too!

[Stanley]

A lot of the problems with patches is the fact they are outsourced and paid for on what amounts to a piece work rate. The same applies to gulley grate clearing by outside contractors. Not enough time is spent preparing the hole for the patch and they are often not deep enough cut-outs. In addition 'cold' tarmac compounds are used and these are never as good as hot tarmac compounds. The problem with patching is of course that hot tarmac sets before it can be used because the quantities are so small.
I agree with Tiz and forecast that the 'experiment' will fail. It is based on cutting down the costs beyond what is a bare minimum for a permanent job. A 'patch' can be good if it's big enough, well prepared and done with good materials used properly. Unfortunately that is too expensive.

[David Whipp]

We'll have to wait and see Stanley...

Extensive areas are planed out for the permanent patching. For instance, the 'patch' on Manchester Road at the junction of Park Avenue is full width and longer than the frontage of the Greyhound.

The patching/surface dressing is intended as preventive maintenance, and areas are patched where they are at risk of failure (even if they've not yet failed). This led to a Tory candidate who lives on Gisburn Road appearing in the paper complaining that the repair gang were doing unnecessary work... Damned if you do...

As I commented earlier, it all depends on how long the surfaces hold up after treatment. I think 7 years is the aim...

[Tizer]

"..it all depends on how long the surfaces hold up after treatment. I think 7 years is the aim..."
I wonder what the Roman road builders would have said about that lifespan!

"..areas are patched where they are at risk of failure (even if they've not yet failed)."
That's a lot more than Somerset do.

[David Whipp]

I've been pondering the 7 year figure; couldn't recall where I'd got it from, or how accurate it was.

A quick google came up with this... road surface treatment life.

[Stanley]

My mind goes back to the 1960s when Carlisle decided to rebuild the road through the town which was still the main route before the motorway. They went down 3 feet and started with carefully placed large pyramidal stones just like the Romans. Then decreasing sizes locked in the bed and ending up with about a foot of tarmac. It took weeks......

[Tizer]

You might want to invite this man to migrate to Barlick...
`The man who uses his pension fund to fill potholes' LINK

[David Whipp]

Thanks!

Nothing like some direct action.