£19m investment in roads and footways
A £19million programme of improvements to West Sussex’s roads and footways is on track to be completed by April.
The works, which were announced in September last year and include extra investment from central government of around £9m, comprise of £8.89m for road resurfacing, £6.12m for road patching, £2m for signs and road line marking improvements, £0.52m for microasphalt treatment and £1.5m for footways.
Roger Elkins, West Sussex County Council’s cabinet member for highways and infrastructure, said: “Progress to date is encouraging and a tribute to the hard work of the highways team and our contractors. Subject to factors such as severe weather, we are on course to
complete most, if not all, the improvements we hoped to achieve this financial year.”
So far 17km of carriageways have been resurfaced, which is more than 50 per cent of this part of the programme complete, 55,731 square metres of road patching (85 per cent complete), 6.3km of road microasphalt treatment (complete for 2020/21), 7km of footway reconstruction (about 60 per cent complete), 15km of footway microasphalt treatment (complete for 2020/21) and 110km of the road network has been identified for work on marking and signs (around 90 per cent of road markings and 70 per cent of signs sites identified are complete).
Microasphalt is a preventative measure used to seal and prolong the life of roads and footways which have more minor damage. It involves treating existing surfaces which are structurally sound but starting to deteriorate.
Subject to confirmation at a full council meeting next week, the next two financial years will see a £12million boost to the usual level of spending on West Sussex’s highways, with £6m extra in 2021/22 and another £6m extra in 2022/23.
A map of all roadworks is available at www.westsussex. gov.uk/roads-and-travel/ roadworks-and-projects/ roadworks/roadworks-map/