21 July 2021 Latest News

Essex Highways surfaces 110 miles of road in 2021

Essex Highways’ crews have surfaced over 110 miles of road, the length of a return journey from West Mersea to Harlow, in the seven months of 2021 so far.

Crews used a variety of different surfacing techniques appropriate to each road section.

Various processes were used, including:

  • Fast Coverage Surface Dressing, where machines quickly cover the road with sticky “binder” tar layer and then spread stones on top
  • Intensive micro-surfacing which is finished by hand
  • Full resurfacing where heavy machines grind off the existing road surface and the crew then lay new asphalt.

Councillor Lee Scott, Cabinet Member for Highways Maintenance and Sustainable Transport, said: “This is good news for drivers and cyclists in Essex that despite COVID-19 restrictions and tighter budgets, we’ve still managed to keep to so much of our road surfacing programme, with positive effects for years to come.

“Our engineers carefully inspect and record the condition of all our roads, and plan surfacing with the right technique according to how worn, how busy and how fast the road is.

“For example, if we do Surface Dressing at the right time we can efficiently future-proof long stretches of rural roads for years, preventing potholes forming. If we just stuck to fixing potholes, we would have thousands more and the costs would be prohibitive.”

“In order to complete full resurfacing, we often work at night. We understand that night works can cause delays and possible disturbance to sleeping residents.

“However, they are completely necessary to allow longer working sessions avoiding peak traffic, thereby enabling the work to be completed more quickly with minimal delays for drivers.”

Surface dressing is used when a road surface is in reasonably good condition, but needs some quick, overall improvement. The work can last up to ten years.

Essex Highways’ surface dressing programme is now coming to an end with 84 miles worth of work on 59 road sections completed, using 1,300 tonnes of tar “binder” and 12,000 tonnes of stone chippings.

Micro-surfacing gives more durable results, but is more intensive and more expensive, putting a thin layer of new surface on the road. It takes longer to cover a given area than Surface Dressing but is used where roads are busier. So far, Essex Highways has carried out over 12 miles worth of micro-surfacing.

Full resurfacing is where the existing surface of a road is removed, and a completely new depth of surface is laid as a replacement. This treatment is used where the road is badly worn and takes heavy traffic. Crews have completed 14 miles using 30,000 tonnes of asphalt. Essex Highways aims to resurface 31 miles before winter, which will require a total of 65,000 tonnes of material.

Surfacing programmes include Joint Sealing and Fine Milling to restore concrete road surfaces, which is just starting now and recycling these surfaces from September.

For more information about our Road Surfacing programme and to view upcoming works, please visit Renewing Surfaces