Extra cash allows county to resurface 75 more roads

LANCASHIRE County Council will resurface an additional 75 roads in the year ahead after it received more money than it was expecting from the government for upkeep of the region’s highways.

County Hall officials last month laid out their maintenance plans for the year ahead on the assumption that they would get a reduced £20.1m settlement from the Department for Transport (DfT) for 2022/23.

However, the authority learned just days beforehand that it would once again be handed the £28m that it was allocated last year.

Cabinet members have now approved a list of extra schemes to go with the 76 that they had already agreed.

Labour opposition group leader Azhar Ali welcomed the investment, but said that there were roads across the county that were now “absolutely shot” - and asked what the future was for streets that “keep getting missed off [the list of repairs] year after year”.

However, cabinet member for highways and transport Charlie Edwards defended the authority’s strategy for deciding which routes should be prioritised for work.

“All of the schemes that were put forward by individual [councillors], members of the public or by our own highways engineers go through a ranking process and it’s done very much based on the evidence and the approach that we’ve got.

“The ones that met the criteria the most were the ones [selected],” he said.

“I just think it’s really important that we stick to the methodology and a decision-making process where this is always the case.

“I think by following the evidence you do end up with a much fairer system [compared to the one that] some authorities still sadly have which is whoever shouts the loudest gets their road done - and I think that’s an extremely inequitable way to run a department, and it’s certainly not a professional way to run a local government organisation in the 21st century.”

Additional maintenance works planned in Rossendale:

Booth Road - Mid Rossendale - resurfacing from John Street to Burnley Road East; Lilac Avenue Rossendale West - resurfacing full length; Thistlemount Avenue - Mid Rossendale resurfacing full length; Prospect Street - Mid Rossendale and Rossendale East resurfacing from Burnley Road East to Wales Road; Stubbins Vale Road Rossendale South - surface dressing from Stubbins Street to farm cottages; Chatterton Road - Rossendale South - surface dressing from Bolton Road North to the end of the road; Somerset Walk - Rossendale West resurfacing full length; Bluebell Avenue - Rossendale West - resurfacing from Campion Drive to the end of the road.