West Sussex County Council has launched what it said is one of the biggest investments in the county's highway infrastructure in the last decade.
The £17m programme of more than 320 road maintenance and footway improvement schemes in this financial year includes:
- 46 road resurfacing schemes worth £3.2m
- 71 road patching projects worth £1.2m
- 63 surface dressing schemes worth £3m
- Resurfacing sections of the A24, A264, A2011 and A2220, costing a total of £6.3m
- Footway improvements worth a total of £1.5m
Joy Dennis, cabinet member for highways and transport, said: ‘People care passionately about the roads and footways, as do we, and we know how vital the county’s highway is, which was why our officers’ and contractors’ work continued throughout the pandemic, keeping West Sussex moving.’
‘We also realise road and footway work involves short-term disruption, for which we apologise, but it leads to long-term benefits: for example, resurfacing a road produces a smoother surface, reducing road noise and increasing resilience to potholes.’
A resurfacing project in Shoreham earlier in the year
The council said carbon reduction initiatives are included in the programme, including the use of warm mix asphalts.
Ms Dennis added: ‘Our officers continue to work with contractors to explore use of the latest technology, such as allowing resurfacing materials to be mixed at much lower temperatures than conventional asphalt and using recycled material from our roads.
‘This can significantly cut the carbon emissions attributed to a scheme, without impacting on quality.’
Last month the council said a £1.5m scheme to resurface approximately 3km of both carriageways of the A24 Washington would use the latest warm mix technology and that approximately half the material used would utilise recycled material recovered from other roads in the county.
