As part of Dorset Council’s ‘green’ approach to highways maintenance, road retexturing is contributing to a reduction in emissions.
Working with WJ Textureblast, the council has refreshed 67,000sqm of road surface this year – raising skid resistance to improve the safety of highway.
Where appropriate, the sustainable solution eliminates the need to resurface a road and instead uses one of two techniques to blast the road surface to regain its skid resistance to the same – or better – level of resistance it had when the material was first laid.
Depending on the individual site, the road will either have small steel shots fired at the surface to improve the texture or will have water blasted at the surface to remove excess binder.
This road retexturing has helped reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by over 335,000kg, and saved around 6,700 tonnes of virgin aggregates from being used.
It also has financial savings of over £1.2m compared to using conventional resurfacing methods to provide a new textured surface.
Cllr Ray Bryan, Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said: “We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint and embedding our climate and ecological emergency response work in all that we do.
“Using retexturing to refresh skid resistance rather than replacing the surface is a good example of how making small changes in the way we do things can lessen on our impact on the environment and take us closer to our net-zero target.”
Nigel Savage, Managing Director for WJ Textureblast, said: “We have been working with Dorset for over ten years, and it’s great to see the benefits we continue to bring to the area’s road network. This year, we have been proud to show the level of carbon savings that can be achieved through the use of retexturing, when compared to resurfacing.”
Road retexturing is also more convenient for the travelling public, as roads can remain open during the treatment.
This road surface is absolutely horrible for cyclists.
What about Whincroft Close, we are the poor relations in Ferndown. Most of the roads and pavements have been resurfaced, why not Our road we pay the same rates. I will guarantee you won’t reply to this email.
Wouldn’t it be more informative to publish the amount of miles of
highway refurbished, not sq.m.
Bet it is really noisy to drive on causing nuisance to residence and vehicle users. More grip also means it will wear tires quicker which in itself will cancel any carbon saving. But never the less the Council will save money in the short term until residents complain enough to make them install noise screening at a cost, but in the short term will be able to tick the green box. I would like to see the whole life cost benefit if it has been done.
Good to see this.
We had our roads here in Ferndown (Queens Road/Beaufoys area) re-surfaced a few weeks back but as the underlying surface was not fixed there are already potholes and undulations appearing. There are also loose chippings still lying on the surface which makes it dangerous for road cycles and motorbikes.
Be interested to understand what “the level of carbon savings” are exactly – who and how is this being measured?
What is critically important yet not mentioned in your report on this road surfacing method has to be the road noise generated by the movement of vehicle tyres passing over this surface.
Would you therefore explain/publish road noise figures when compared with other road surfacing materials?
Changing to low-noise road surfaces can make a big difference to the noise level. Over recent years low-noise surfaces as standard on new roads and on existing roads when they need resurfacing.
Thank you
Does it affect the nose from the road surface?
The way it’s described the system consists of either exposing more of the stone aggregate within the asphalt or adding steel shot to create an exposed aggregate effect.
Either way will this not increase the noise levels generated by tyres on exposed aggregate? A serious cause of noise pollution in many areas.