City route in line for £1m roadworks
SECOND TIME ROAD DUE TO BE RESURFACED IN TEN YEARS
THE main artery into a city is to get a £1.5m facelift – despite only being resurfaced ten years ago.
Work is set to begin on the stretch of Chapel Street leading into Salford, starting in April and lasting for six months.
The bulk of the cost will be covered by a financial settlement reached with developers Urban Vision and Galliford Try for the defective road works.
Salford council will also spend £23,000 to investigate why eight trees planted in the central reservation in 2011 died, were replaced and then died again.
And a lay-by for Salford Cathedral will be created in Great George Street as part of the project which construction company AE Yates will complete.
Mayor Paul Dennett said this will be ‘welcome news’ for residents who have raised concerns about the quality of the work undertaken around 10 years ago.
He said: “I sincerely hope that the future solution is one that stands us in good stead because I have to say I have received quite a few complaints from residents who live in this part of the city about the quality of the road along Chapel Street.
“It’s unfortunate that all the costs aren’t being covered by the claim itself.
But nevertheless, this is absolutely the right thing to do and it’s great to see progress being made.”
The granite blocks and concrete foundation along Chapel Street between St Philips Place and Trinity Way will be replaced with Tarmac from next month.
Roadworks are expected to last until October and have been scheduled to fit into a timeline of work planned in the area bordering Manchester city centre.
Opu Anwar, who is part of the council’s infrastructure team, told councillors about the work at a procurement board meeting.
He said: “The last thing we wanted to do was to install a solution that had an inherent flaw in there and then have to keep coming back periodically to resurface or repair the carriageway.
“So we decided to move forward with a solution that would have the least risk to the council moving forward in light of dwindling maintenance budgets and pressures around traffic management.”
Councillors welcomed the ‘amicable agreement’ with the previous developers, but the final figure of the financial settlement has not been published.
The remaining cost of the scheme, which includes a risk allowance of 15 per cent, will be covered by a Department for Transport grant and council borrowing.