Doing the job properly in the first place


Resurfacing our roads makes much more sense than a sticking plaster over the potholes of our crumbling roads. Our roads are currently in such a sorry state without the funds to fix them properly that most of our road maintenance risks throwing good money after bad.


Denis Curran, major projects director for Hanson Contracting, explains: “Traditional pothole repairs cost an average of about £60 each, and the average size of a pothole is about one quarter of a square metre, whereas resurfacing costs in the region of £10 per square metre. So resurfacing our roads is between at least 20 times more efficient, in terms of area covered per pound spent, than reactive maintenance. Additionally, potholes tend to ‘grow’ or


‘migrate’ and often you will see repair crews returning to the same roads two or three times. So the costs escalate very quickly. Against that, good planned maintenance, such as resurfacing the road with a good base and surface course will not require further spending for 10 – 20 years depending upon the usage”. “If you do a proper repair, it means you


don’t have to go back to carry out reactive maintenance” confirms Ray Privett of Portsmouth City Council. Regular resurfacing keeps the road


surface layer intact, whereas roads left to fall into disrepair are likely to suffer more serious damage to structural layers, potentially resulting in the need for complete reconstruction. That is obviously far more costly than carrying out a planned programme of renewing the surface layer. While resurfacing is a key tenet of an


effective road maintenance strategy, Andrew


Molyneux of Leeds City Council argues that: “There should be a place in every highway asset management strategy for repairing potholes, particularly where the work is of a permanent quality. This keeps the road safe and can prepare the surface for subsequent surface treatment. In general once 20 per cent of a road needs patching, whole lifecycle costing identifies that it is more cost effective to resurface. Pothole repairs or patching beyond this point become uneconomical as they only maintain the current situation with no overall ride quality, strength or other long term benefits.” In the meantime most local authorities


are struggling to cope. Vaughan Morris of Reading Borough Council notes: “Long term funding will continue to be challenging.” Catching up with the road maintenance backlog is also proving a problem. Anthony Radford-Foley, Highways Asset Manager for Bracknell said “The last two winters made life completely miserable for both road users and maintenance contractors alike.” Local authority highways departments


are doing what they can, but will continue to struggle until there is a satisfactory way of paying for road maintenance that is based on long-term, sustainable and structured programmes of five, seven or even 10 years with guaranteed funding backed by a full audit trail.


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