Bath & North East Somerset Council has now concluded its annual resurfacing programme, having completed twenty-five schemes across the district.
One of the roads resurfaced as part of the annual programme | Photo © B&NES Council
Almost 15km of highway was brought back to a high standard between March and September.
More than 103,000m2 of highway has been resurfaced, an area equivalent in size to 395 tennis courts.
The council’s Highways team has also repaired 5,149 potholes so far, averaging 19 repairs a day.
Schemes included Englishcombe Lane in Southdown, Combe Park in Weston and Chilcompton Road in Midsomer Norton.
The largest scheme in the programme was Charlton Road in Keynsham, where more than 15,000 m2 of highway was resurfaced.
Working with VolkerHighways and other contractors, the council completed all its road resurfacing schemes between March and September, alongside programmes of highway patching, surface dressing and footway repairs.
Winter weather makes it more difficult to resurface highways to a high standard, so the council carries out the majority of its works in the warmer, drier months of the year.
Two schemes included on this year’s programme, Prior Park Road in Widcombe and A39 Bath Road in Farmborough, have been postponed until 2025.
Councillor Manda Rigby, cabinet member for highways, said: “Maintaining our highway network is an ongoing challenge but each year we get out and improve large areas across Bath & North East Somerset.
“As always, we now move on to planning next year’s programme and prioritising which highways will need to be worked on first.
“Our inspectors will be monitoring the impact the weather has on our network daily and their feedback will help shape next year’s programme.”
The council’s patching programme, which involves smaller resurfacing schemes, has also been completed and has resurfaced 42,000m2 of highway at twenty-five locations.
The resurfacing and patching programmes combined resulted in 21km of highway being brought back to a high standard. A programme of footway resurfacing is still ongoing and once complete will see 9,130m2 of footway resurfaced at twenty-two locations.
To determine which roads will be included on next year’s programme, the council will look at highways that provide key links to services like schools and hospitals, the volume of vehicle and cycle traffic a highway receives, feedback from condition surveys, site inspections by Highway Inspectors and resident reports on FixMyStreet.
