Repair plan in place for district’s drought-damaged roads
Drought can have a severe impact on fen roads. Picture: CONTRIBUTED. - Credit: Archant
Work to repair more than 40 miles of drought damaged roads in Cambridgeshire will start this month.
The scheme, which will include 21 sections of road, including in Huntingdonshire, has been made possible thanks to a successful joint bid by Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council to the Department for Transport.
A total of £3.5million was secured for the scheme, which will see repairs to 10 sections of road affected by extreme weather conditions in Peterborough and another 11 in Cambridgeshire from December until June 2018.
The fund has been topped up by both councils, bringing the total investment to £6.25million.
The roads scheduled for repairs in Huntingdonshire include Herne Road, Benwick Road, and St Mary’s Road, all in Ramsey.
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The county council says it will mean a long-term approach to the maintenance of the roads and will mean all work can be carried out in one go, preventing the need, the council says, for repeated costly repairs and extra disruption for drivers.
Most of the work will involve major road reconstruction, which will include repairing down to the foundation layers in some cases. General maintenance of vegetation, drainage, signage and road markings will also be carried out alongside this work.
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Although the roadworks will only be carried out during daylight hours, due to the extensive nature of the work, the roads will be closed for the duration of each scheme. The council says diversions will be signposted and local access maintained wherever possible.
Letters will be delivered to local residents and businesses in advance of the work.
Cambridgeshire County Council’s chairman of the highways and community infrastructure committee, Councillor Mathew Shuter, said: “Following our successful bid we will be repairing roads that have been affected by extreme weather conditions across fenland areas in Cambridgeshire.
“This additional funding will enable us to take a long-term approach to the maintenance of these roads, reducing the need for repeated costly reactive repairs and extra disruption for drivers.”
Cambridgeshire County Council, Peterborough City Council and its contractor Skanska are working together to minimise disruption to local residents and those who use the roads.
