Officers in Dorset Council’s Highways team are asking Cabinet to approve plans to invest £9.1m toward repairing some of Dorset’s worst roads and improving others.
On 14 May, the Secretary of State for Transport announced a £1.7 billion funding allocation to Combined Authorities and Local Highway Authorities for 2020/21 through the newly created Transport Infrastructure Investment Fund.
Dorset’s share of this additional funding amounts to around £9.1m, with £7.7million awarded by the Department for Transport (DfT) in the form of a Pothole Action Fund specifically to tackle the issue of potholes; investing in both carriageway repairs and preventative treatments.
The Council’s Highways Executive Advisory Panel, made up of elected members from across the political divide and chaired by Cllr Cherry Brooks, has worked alongside officers to determine how the money should be spent most effectively to support Dorset’s road network.
The additional funding is also intended to kick start the construction industry and wider economy, assisting in the authority’s recovery from the impacts of Covid-19, and flood damage arising from the winter.
The proposal to invest the £7,718,615 Pothole Action Fund is as follows:
- £5,068,615 to accelerate our capital resurfacing programme (focused on some of Dorset’s worst strategic roads)
- £2,000,000 into the most damaged, minor roads where a significant proportion of our reactive defects are experienced
- £300,000 – B3078 Stanbridge carriageway edge retention
- £200,000 investment into drainage dig downs and repair
- £150,000 investment into digging ditches
Investing in drainage infrastructure and preventing the formation of water on the highway, plays an important role in protecting our roads from the impacts of potholes.
The investment of these capital funds will also help address network resilience issues arising from the impacts of climate change.
Highways teams are now committed to lower energy asphalts, recycling and surface treatments, as well as investment in low energy bulbs for street lighting and traffic control which will help reduce carbon emissions.
There are also further proposals to invest £1,393,385 into the following schemes:
- £450,000 Longham Bridge design
- £349,272 Wareham A351 pedestrian cycle link
- £390,000 Street lighting LED upgrades – Saving £160,000 revenue each year by 2030 and £320,000 per year by 2040, with a total carbon saving of 2,600 tonnes.
- £204,113 Traffic control and ITS LED retrofit – Saving £27,117 revenue funding per year, and 86 tonnes of carbon per year
Cllr Ray Bryan, Dorset Council Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said:
“We’re delighted to be able to share our plans for how we intend to spend this much-welcome investment from central government. As a rural county, our road network is vital to Dorset residents and it’s imperative we enable people to be able to get around safely.
The Department for Transport is allocating over £112 million to the South West, enough to fix around 2 million potholes in 2020/21, or to stop them forming in the first place. Our Highways team works incredibly hard to look after our roads and this funding will give them a welcome boost in resources to deal with maintenance issues faster than before.”
This is all good news.
Will Lillington (DT9 6QX) feature on the resurfacing programme as promised a couple of years ago by our Highways rep? Our loop is in an awful state with recurring potholes.
A scrape of the sides of the road would reveal much highway that is covered with grass, grown on soil/detritus left by farm vehicles over the years.
The extreme publicity surrounding Durdle Door generates traffic volumes that cannot be coped with by the existing road system. Closing the roads is not the answer as this simply shifts the problem elsewhere. The profitability of tourism must be made to pay for a solution. The matter is urgent.
Pleased to see the upgrade to LED lighting, and other improvements, but why are the new ones on the A31 at Tricketts Cross on permanently?
Andrew
Councillor Arthur Evans, Iwerne Minster Parish Council
The roads within Iwerne Minster are in a terrible state. So bad that they prompted a resident of the Village to write to Simon Hoare
Roger Bell is aware of the state of the Roads which are made worse because Iwerne has more springs than any other village in the UK
We are grateful that Dorset’s roads will be maintained so well. However, this is a plea for a new ‘quiet roads’ policy to be drawn up by our Council. The recent gravel top dressings here in Weymouth create a lot of tyre noise for residents, compared with the beautifully silent and smooth surfacing done in several places in previous years. With cars now beginning the change to having quiet electric engines there is an opportunity to improve the built environment with less noise, fewer polluting micro rubber particles scrubbed off from tyres, and longer tyre life for transport. I hope that the Council will debate and decide on this soon.
Are you going to finish resurfacing South Road in Swanage? It was only half done before lockdown started
Perhaps while you are spending £9.1 million on the roads you could include laying a new Superfast Fibre Broadband cable to the residents of the Southlands area of Weymouth that have to suffer from disgustingly low speeds as all of the Green Roadside cabinets supplying Fast Broadband are on the main roads.
If you have a couple of pounds left, would the Dorset Council consider Arlington, Southill Garden Drive, DT4 9SG for a resurface? Several patches have been made over the years as this road is overused by the many cars for turning by users of the Southill Community Centre, Emmanuel Church the Youth Club, and play area which are adjacent. The top surface is worn away and several deeper depressions are appearing. Carisbrooke, a short distance away, was resurfaced recently providing a much safer surface and a good example of what can be achieved.
https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/roads-highways-maintenance/report-a-problem-on-the-road-or-pavement.aspx
The recent resurfacing/patching of the A352 (Wareham Rd) between Wool and Owermoigne has increased the noise of traffic considerably. I hope that this extra money will allow Highways to use the quiet surface materials on new work as in the recent resurfacing of the A353 (Littlemore Rd) around Osmington.
Please don’t use the method that creates chippings, such as that on the recently resurfaced Dorchester Road in Weymouth.
The volume of traffic to Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove continues to increase. The considerable impact on the quality of life in the villages en route is hugely negative. Safety concerns, noise, carbon emissions, inappropriate speed, aggression towards residents and a failure to protect, respect and enhance the local environment by visitors who also leave mountains of litter, much of it by its nature presenting a health hazard, have reached levels that are hard to imagine. These problems can be solved without denying access to two of Dorsets iconic beauty spots and can even encourage higher value tourism. I hope that some of the new money can go towards this objective.