Local council wasting money . . . .

[Steve]

. . . or good practise?


You decide!

I wrote to Doncaster Council on friday:

Subject: surface dressing

Hi, I drove through High Melton today and saw the main road through being surfaced. I saw this and wondered why. The road surface in High Melton was what I'd describe as new and to a good standard. If memory serves me right, it was only totally resurfaced about 5 years ago. Can you please tell me the reason why this road was chosen for dressing, considering the much poorer quality roads nearby such as Melton Mill Lane (the hill leading down to Mexborough)?

Thankyou
Steve

They replied this morning:

Thank you for your enquiry.

The surface dressing works in High Melton were undertaken in association with road traffic safety initiatives as advised via our Traffic and Transportation Department. The engineer associated with this is on leave at the moment however I will ask him to contact you should he have anything additional to explain from a road and traffic safety position.

In association with road safety we have also considered the highway maintenance needs of this road. As you correctly say, the road was resurfaced around five years ago and is in relatively good condition. It is good and standard industry practice to regularly monitor road condition and to consider a preservative maintenance treatment at around the 5 to 6 year stage after resurfacing in order to secure the whole life investment in the newly laid surface, although this is not always possible due to annual funding constraints. In the case of High Melton, it was observed that some early superficial deterioration was evident at several high-stress locations along this road which necessitated local patching, this may be connected with the tree cover and shady conditions exhibited on this stretch of highway. The funding provided from the Safety Section budgets for surface dressing on this particular road in this instance permitted this early road surface deterioration to be arrested before further more extensive damage could occur.

The cost of Surface Dressing is a fraction of the cost of conventional resurfacing, strengthening or reconstruction, and it provides a cost effective way of preserving and extending the life of our highways, thereby preventing them from falling into a worse state of deterioration.

The C309 Melton Mill Lane is registered on our forward programme for a local strengthening and resurfacing scheme, which is in a different league to surface dressing in terms of the nature of the works and its cost. These considerably more costly schemes are individually assessed on a borough-wide basis reflective of the annual finding provisions for highway maintenance and on engineering value management considerations. Presently we have many schemes on our lists in need of maintenance but only a few each year can be funded. Unfortunately I am not in a position to advise you when Melton Mill Lane will be resurfaced as our annual road condition surveys tend to re-baseline the maintenance needs and priorities of the road network following the winter period deterioration. However, pending scheme implementation, this road will continue to be safety inspected every three months and any safety defects registered will be made good without undue delay.

I hope the above serves to answer your enquiry.

Regards

Barry Roughley

Surely they could re-allocate the funding to the poorer quality roads to bring them up to standard. Melton mill lane is potholed, has big dips in it and it in poor shape, as well as being a 10% hill! Not good at all. And its busy, and cars park on the side. And theres a kids play area. Need I go on . .

By the way, "surface dressing" refers to the practise of spreading bitumen on the surface and spreading gravel (small chips) over it. I can see how this would prolong the life of a road, but in my opinion they did it too soon. This is a road which seems always to get money thrown at it.

Good on Donny council though, I wasn't expecting such a detailed and quick reply!

 

[Trazor]

Good on Donny council though, I wasn't expecting such a detailed and quick reply!

I would have been more impressed, had they not wasted more money by replying to you.....

 

[Steve]

I would have been more impressed, had they not wasted more money by replying to you.....

Hmmm, but I didnt ASK them to resurface that road, did i!

 

[tim west]

enough funds for all those sleeping policemen though

 

[libby lou lou]

enough funds for all those sleeping policemen though

Sorry to disrupt, but, mentioning sleeping policemen, would it not be cheaper to dig a hole/ditch/whatever a reflection of the hump? not have to spend many ££££ on materials? the waste could be used elsewhere.

 

[conny]

Ditches in one road, sleeping policemen in the next.

Simples!

 

[dextrous]

Sorry to disrupt, but, mentioning sleeping policemen, would it not be cheaper to dig a hole/ditch/whatever a reflection of the hump? not have to spend many ££££ on materials? the waste could be used elsewhere.

Deep puddles I'm afraid.

 

[libby lou lou]

Free tyre wash.

 

[AndrewSchofield]

I question the safety of the 'surface dressing' technique anyway - when it has been done around here it appears to me that a huge quantity of the chippings don't stick to the bitumen and so you end up with a road covered in gravel - most recently around here an extremely busy Trunk Road. Sure enough they put up signs indicating a temporary limit of 10mph but very few people stick to this limit so most of these chippings end up hitting my bonnet or windscreen until enough traffic has passed to 'wash' the loose chippings to the side and/or middle of the road - thus then creating a further hazard when cars overtake, crossing the centre of the road and ending up driving across a strip of loose gravel. This is a fairly limited problem on busy roads where lots of traffic pass over after they've 'dressed' the surface but last summer they did this on a road i use to travel to work but isn't generally heavily used - here it took weeks for the loose chippings to clear. I suppose though, they'll wait until someone's windscreen gets broken or someone loses control on the loose gravel and causes a serious accident before considering if this method is safe or not?

 

[AndrewSchofield]

I question the safety of the 'surface dressing' technique anyway - when it has been done around here it appears to me that a huge quantity of the chippings don't stick to the bitumen and so you end up with a road covered in gravel - most recently around here an extremely busy Trunk Road. Sure enough they put up signs indicating a temporary limit of 10mph but very few people stick to this limit so most of these chippings end up hitting my bonnet or windscreen until enough traffic has passed to 'wash' the loose chippings to the side and/or middle of the road - thus then creating a further hazard when cars overtake, crossing the centre of the road and ending up driving across a strip of loose gravel. This is a fairly limited problem on busy roads where lots of traffic pass over after they've 'dressed' the surface but last summer they did this on a road i use to travel to work but isn't generally heavily used - here it took weeks for the loose chippings to clear. I suppose though, they'll wait until someone's windscreen gets broken or someone loses control on the loose gravel and causes a serious accident before considering if this method is safe or not?

Talk about a premonition - just had a text off my missus to say that someone's driven past her way too fast on a newly 'surface dressed' stretch of road, flicked a stone up and its cracked the windscreen on our car - wonderful!!

 

[roughcaster]

Altogether now,,,,, """Autoglass repair, Autoglass replace""""

Roughcaster.