Roughing up the road

Great for the road, great for the environment – quick to do and improves safety, too  

At the start of November and into late January, LCC Highways is continuing the surface treatments programme, with some more serious bits of work that give old roads a new lease of life.

Called Carriageway Retexturing, the latest round of works is a process that sees the top part of the road shotblasted with specialist equipment to improve braking performance and safety. Think of it like sanding the top of a wooden deck after it gets worn and slippery-smooth, only in a much bigger way and with much bigger bits of kit.

Nearly 11,000 metres of roads will get the roughing-up treatment with the sites listed getting the improvement:

• Blenheim Way/Northfield Road, Market Deeping  
• B1188, between Scopwick & Digby  
• A153, Leasingham Moor  
• A1031, Ludney  
• A15, Cranwell  
• A157, Main Road, Biscathorpe  
• Boston Road, Swineshead  
• A158, Burgh Le Marsh  
• Keddington Road, Louth  
• A15, Waddington Heath  

Cllr Richard Davies, executive member for Highways at LCC, said: “This is another excellent technique we can use in colder weather as part of our carriageway surface treatments programme. These are the works that give us a smooth, improved road surface and we usually carry them out across many roads.

“Whilst hundreds of other Highways teams are continuing with pothole repairs, road rebuilding and plenty of other areas of maintenance that we are delivering daily and will continue to do, this is the next part of our specialist surface scheme that’s about to get underway.

“As part of our ‘On the Road in ’24’ commitment, we have already delivered 12 miles of Carriageway Micro Asphalt, 177 miles of carriageway surface dressing and now we’re focusing on this carriageway retexturing programme.

“Retexturing is a very sustainable and cost-effective way to restore skid resistance and texture to improve tyre grip. We can do this work by either Hydro Blasting or Shot Blasting and can carry out this work on roads where the surface is in generally good condition but needs roughing up to get better performance.

“Retexturing means we get a big improvement in the right places at reduced cost whilst delivering on our carbon saving commitments.”  

Where each set of road improvement in the £300,000 programme is being carried out, there will be some traffic delays via a mixture of temporary road closures and convoy working traffic management.

Cllr Davies added: “One of the best things about this technique is that we don’t have to close a road for very long and in most cases, we can get the scheme done with traffic lights and a moving convoy to keep the road open.

“We will try to avoid disruption wherever possible to lessen the impact on local traffic networks. Because of the type of work, some disruption will be unavoidable to maintain the safety of road users and our crews, and I want to thank anyone affected by this improvement programme for their patience and understanding.”