No more 4,000 potholes in Blackburn

Blackburn with Darwen Council is investing more than £10m in tackling pot holes on its roads.

The multi-million programme will result in hundreds of roads being resurfaced or repaired as part of a new maintenance regime designed to reduce the overall amount spent on highway repairs.

After recent severe bad winters and serious flooding last summer, the condition of the borough’s road network has further deteriorated.

Blackburn with Darwen is synonymous with the Beatles song ‘Day in the Life’, which says there were ’4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.’

The new “Invest to Save” highway programme will see a 10 year backlog of repairs being carried out over the next four years.

It will involve targeted repair and resurfacing of many defective roads, whilst others will be sealed against water ingress, using a combination of surfacing treatments to prevent further damage.

The decision was made at the Council’s Executive Board on July 11th.

The proposal to the executive board said the borough’s roads will be improved minimum by intelligently targeting the repairs and reducing the number of repeat visits to potholes.

If not undertaken now, the network will deteriorate further and future repair work will become even more expensive.

The Council is supplementing its existing budgets with an additional £6.7m over the next 10 years. It usually spends around £3.3m on the roads and this will continue, giving the roads a much needed boost of £10m.

The Council currently repairs an average of 1,000 pot holes a month. There are 545km of roads in the borough and over the last 10 years, the Council has resurfaced an average of 7.9km a year, leading to a backlog of 140km.

Full resurfacing costs up to £40 per sqm, this investment allows is to do preventative work sooner, at a lower cost of just £7 per sqm.

Blackburn with Darwen has a road network of 545km and over the last 10 years, it has resurfaced an average of 7.9km a year, leading to a backlog of 140km.

In May 2012, all carriageways in the borough were surveyed and results show that there are considerable areas of the network in need of varying levels of maintenance.

Councillor Maureen Bateson, Executive Member for Regeneration, said: ”Prevention is better than cure. By tackling repairs before they reach a serious state will save us money in the long term.

It is not cost effective to keep going back to repair the same pot hole time.

“We are transforming the way we tackle highway repairs by trying to be smarter with the funds we have.

"A good road network is essential for a vibrant local economy. Residents and businesses have told us that the state of the roads matters to them.

“This will benefit the whole borough including motorists, passengers on public transport and cyclists.”