Lancashire County Council has laid out the 88 road resurfacing schemes it plans to carry out over the next year.
The authority’s cabinet approved the provisional list of projects – totalling over 100 individual routes – which will see it spend £15.2m on maintaining and upgrading road surfaces across its patch.
Of the 88, five are in Chorley, five are in Preston and ten are in South Ribble.
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The works form part of County Hall’s broader £32.4m highways maintenance grant from the government for 2024/25, from which £5.6m has also been reserved for bridge repairs, as well as allocations for the upkeep of other infrastructure like streetlamps and traffic lights.
The total pot has this year been bolstered by Lancashire’s £3.6m share of additional highways cash the government has made available nationwide from the money saved by scrapping the northern leg of the HS2 high-speed rail link to Manchester. That has been added to the £28.8m which the county is once again expected to receive from Whitehall for looking after local roads.
Of the extra funding, the county council has put half of it – £1.8m – into its ‘localised deterioration fund’ to respond to carriageway condition issues raised by councillors.
Nevertheless, a report presented to cabinet members still issued its now standard warning that Lancashire is millions of pounds short of the level of funding needed to maintain its roads to a given standard.
It noted that the minimum amount required to manage highways and related infrastructure “within a reasonable level of risk” is estimated to be between £41.7m and £45.2m. To achieve a “sustainable investment level”, even more cash would be needed, of between £51.8m and £56.2million – the upper limit being almost £24m in excess of what Lancashire actually has at its disposal.
The report also described there being “an effective reduction in funding available” this year because of “current inflationary pressures”. The document said the resultant risks included a reduction in the ability to maintain the progress made – and meet the future priorities set – as part of its Transport Asset Management Plan (TAMP).
It is on the basis of that three-phase strategy – which was introduced in 2014 – that the pre-planned surface schemes for the coming financial year have been determined. As in previous years, they are a combination of full resurfacing works and so-called ‘surface dressing’, a special process that not only improves the condition of carriageways, but seals them to prevent future damage caused by water entering cracks in the road.
The focus of the TAMP in its current second phase is on the network of so-called ‘urban unclassified’ roads – less major, but still well-used routes in built-up areas – having previously focused on the main A, B and C highways.
Meanwhile, the authority expects to spend £10m on as-yet-unknown “structural defects” – aka potholes – that appear during the course of the year The budget for those reactive repairs includes an earmarked £2m from the £32m highways maintenance grant.
However, the remaining £8m is in addition to that tally and could either come from other funding within the authority’s capital and revenue budgets, or as “a last resort”, borrowing, according to the cabinet report.
The document acknowledges that the money needed for unplanned repair work might have to expand to “reflect operational demand” – and so be more than £10m in total. That is because the authority is obliged to repair all potholes that meet the minimum depth at which it commits to act for safety reasons – 40mm.
Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils look after the roads in their own areas and receive separate government funding to the county council.
Chorley
B5252, Myles Standish Way – Chorley Central – resurfacing of three roundabouts
B5252, Myles Standish Way – Chorley Central – surface dressing of five sections, Ackhurst Road/Foxhole Road-Lower Burgh Way-Myles Standish Way
Railway Road – surface dressing between Harpers Lane and no. 70 Railway Road and no. 70 to Brock Road; and Corporation Street between Railway Road and no. 5.
Moss Lane – Chorley Rural East – surface dressing from Millennium Way to Preston Road
Preston
A59, Longsight Road – Preston Rural – surface dressing from Ribchester Road traffic light junction to Mellor Brook roundabout
Sandygate Lane – Preston Rural – resurfacing full length, including some footway works
Grizedale Crescent – Preston South East/Preston East Grizedale – surface dressing of Grizedale Crescent and surrounding roads
Lightfoot Lane – Preston North – surface dressing between junction with Eastway and
A6 Garstang; and from outside no. 83A to no. 87 Lightfoot Lane
South Ribble
Thorngate – Penwortham West – resurfacing of Thorngate and Thorngate Close
Wesley Street – South Ribble East – resurfacing from Stockdale Crescent to Station Road
Slater Lane – Moss Side and Farington/Leyland Central/Leyland South – resurfacing from School Lane to St. James Lodge
Slater Lane – Moss Side and Farington/Leyland Central/Leyland South – surface dressing of two sections between outside St. James Lodge to Mill Lane
Collins Road North – Lostock Hall and Bamber Bridge – resurfacing from Collins Road to The Crescent
Hoghton Lane – South Ribble East – resurfacing full length
Stockdale Crescent – South Ribble East – surface dressing of Stockdale Crescent and surrounding roads
Church Lane – Moss Side and Farington – surface dressing from Chain House Lane to Croston Road
St. James Gardens – Moss Side and Farington – surface dressing of full length including cul-de-sacs
Marsh Lane – South Ribble West – surface dressing from Liverpool Road to Hall Carr Lane
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