Derby CC to consider £23m roads investment

More than £20 million could be spent on improving roads in Derbyshire if the county council approves funding.

A report will be considered by Derbyshire County Council’s cabinet at a meeting on 5 August. The report details how £23m could be spent over three years from April 2015, and would pay for hundreds of miles of roads to have their life extended by 10 to 15 years by being patched and surface dressed.

Derbyshire County Council's deputy cabinet member for jobs, economy and transport, councillor Dean Collins, said: "Over the past few years we have been spending more and more of our increasingly scarce budget on fixing potholes and not enough on maintaining our roads.

"This means that we have many hundreds of miles of roads that have just started to deteriorate and need urgent work to stop their condition getting any worse.

"This major investment looks to improve the condition of those roads and extend their life by 10 to 15 years. Surface dressing makes a road waterproof – and it's keeping the water out that will keep the potholes at bay long-term.

"Surface dressing also helps to improve skid resistance so we'll be helping to protect against accidents on the roads.

"We're targeting our resources to achieve the maximum gain over the next 10 years."

If the report is approved, the cash will come partly from reserves – £6m, partly from local transport grant – £3.5m and the rest – £13.5m would be borrowed.

Engineers will assess which roads will be included in the programme in a number of ways:

• Regular laser scanning of roads that looks for defects on the road surface



• Detailed visual inspection by trained inspectors



• A machine survey of roads that looks at the level of wet skid resistance



• A survey of the roads that measures the strength of the road.