May 15, 2015 4.14 pm This story is over 105 months old

Road recycling to save 20km of damaged Lincolnshire highways

Road repairs: A three-month road repairs project is set to save Lincolnshire County Council £1 million.

Lincolnshire County Council has begun a three month ‘in-situ road recycling’ project which sees excess material from major roadworks in the county used to fix damaged unclassified roads.

The project is expected to save the authority around £1 million on traditional methods.

The work will be undertaken on 29 sections of unclassified, pot hole damaged roads, totalling 19km, with work taking between one and four days at each site.

There will be road closures in place at each site, but access will be maintained.

The new surfaces are predicted to last at least 10 years, removing the need to constantly repair pot holes caused by extreme weather conditions.

So far, since being introduced in 2013, using this process has saved the authority approximately £3m compared to traditional methods and seen approximately 60km of roads repaired.

Lincolnshire County Council is the only local authority in the country to repair roads in this way, and as such is being used as part of national studies.

Between now and the start of August, works will take place on sections of:

  • East Fen Lane, New Leake
  • Love Lane, Wrangle
  • Jolly Common Lane, Huttoft
  • Hills Borough Farm Lane, Thoresway
  • Westholmes Lane, South Kelsey
  • Lowlands, Saxby
  • Dairy Lane, Blyborough
  • Hazelwood Avenue and Clumber Street, Lincoln
  • Nocton Fen Lane, Nocton
  • Dunston Fen, Dunston
  • Fen Road, Ruskington
  • Waithe Lane, Ewerby
  • Spring Lane, Leasingham
  • Heath Lane, Carlton Scroop
  • Reedings Close, Barrowby
  • The Drift, Denton
  • Lower Bitchfield, Bitchfield
  • Scotland Lane, Ingoldsby
  • Pointon Fen North, Pointon
  • Dunsby Fen, Dunsby
  • Morton Drove, Morton
  • Wood Lane, Northorpe
  • North Drove, Counter Drain Drove
  • North Drove Bank, Pode Hole
  • Sutterton Drove, Amber Hill.

Area Highways Manager, Mark Heaton, who is the county lead on this work, said: “The speed of which we can carry out this work reduces disruption to motorists but has a big impact on the local road network and economy.

“We effectively crush the top section of the road, mix it with material taken from major road works elsewhere in the county, a binding material and chippings and then re-shape the road, eliminating pot holes and creating a better road structure.

“We can then surface this new section of road. This process has proved very effective in the areas where we have already used it.”

Lincolnshire County Council’s Executive member for Highways and Transportation, Councillor Richard Davies, added: “In recent years we have seen increasing budget pressures across the council, including in the highways budget, while at the same time extreme weather conditions have caused an increase in road damage such as potholes.

“This process shows how innovative thinking can save both time and money and reduce disruption to motorists while being extremely effective in repairing roads.”