Shropshire Council’s surface dressing programme improves 80 miles of road
More than 50 stretches of road across Shropshire have been treated this year as part of Shropshire Council’s annual surface dressing programme.
This year’s surface dressing programme began on 27 April, and ended on 1 August, with 55 roads treated.
In total, 80 miles of road have been dressed – the distance from Church Stretton to Cardiff as the crow flies – with 763,688m2 of road treated – the equivalent of 107 Wembley football pitches.
Surface dressing involves applying and rolling aggregate ‘chippings’ onto bitumen. It plays a key role in improving the county’s roads, and is a quick, efficient and cost-effective way of preventing potholes, maintaining skid-resistance and waterproofing road surfaces.
Dan Morris, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for highways, said:
“Surface dressing is a simple and highly cost-effective method of maintaining the road surface which can prevent much more expensive work being needed later, and it allows us to maintain a high-quality road network on a limited budget.
“I want to say thank you to all from Shropshire Council and our contractor Kier for successfully delivering this year’s surface dressing programme.
“As well as improving and protecting our roads, this important programme of work plays a crucial role in helping to prevent potholes and other defects forming in the future. Pothole treatment is very much about prevention as well as cure and this is one important way that we can aim to prevent potholes forming next winter.”
The work was carried out by Kier, the council’s highways contractor.
Ian Mclellan, general manager at Kier Transportation, said:
“Surface dressing extends the life of roads by up to 15 years, and is more sustainable than resurfacing methods. The preventative road surface treatment is applied before roads are past the point of repair – and through this early intervention, we will have no doubt improved journeys for thousands of residents and road users for years to come.”
