Roads to get repair cash are revealed

DETAILS have been released of the Hyndburn streets to benefit from a £20m countywide highways maintenance cash pot.

Full resurfacing has been pencilled in for the Lower Gate Road – Station Road/Altham Lane to Burnley Lane/Higher Gate Road, Huncoat; Hollins Lane from Newton Drive to Royds Avenue, Baxenden; Hargreaves Road and others (Hargreaves

Road, Brookside View, Calico Close, Rushes Farm Close and New Bury Close), Oswaldtwistle; and Kipling Place, Great Harwood.

There are 76 resurfacing projects across the Lancashire County Council (LCC) area – many of which incorporate multiple roads.

County Hall received a total of £28m from the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2021, but had forecast a fall in the money that would be made available over the next 12 months.

However, just days before last Thursday’s cabinet meeting at which the repairs were agreed, the DfT announced that county hall would receive the same amount again this year. Cabinet member for highways Charlie Edwards said the authority would now draw up a list of additional schemes to be funded.

Lancashire was also handed £3.2m from an incentive fund for maintaining its status as one of the best-performing highways authorities.

Coun Edwards said that a new “Lancashire standard” would help eradicate “the blight of the black blob” – where a temporary repair has to be carried out until the correct materials can be found to match up with those that remain in place.

He said: “There is the issue of when [a] utility company fails to replace or reinstate the highways that they chew up.

“Often the excuse they use is: ‘We can’t get the right materials’.”