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More money to improve the roads and footpaths?

Wed 20 Jun 2007
A lot of road maintenance activity has been seen around Southall recently. You can see quite a few junctions have been resurfaced and odd pot holes being repaired one by one.

Looking at the quality of some of the road repairs, see images of Oswald Road, just off Southall Broadway, it would be difficult for a non-resident to tell exactly what repair work has been carried out. The images shown are after the repair work has been done.

Is any one actually looking at the quality of the repairs?

It was only recently that Ealing Council announced that it will be spending an additional £2 million to fix the worst of the borough’s roads and footpaths.

The extra investment will see the budget for road and footpath renewal increase from £1.5 million to £3.5 million this financial year. This will quadruple the number of roads to be resurfaced this year to 88 and will fund the renewal of 30 footpaths.

A grading system will be used to ensure roads and footpaths most in need are among the first to benefit from the additional funding.

Councillor Will Brooks, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, said: “We are well aware that a number of our roads and pavements are in dire need of repair and the extra funding will mean this happens as a matter of priority.

“We are committed to providing this borough with decent roads and footpaths that are free of potholes and cracks.” Repair work will commence in September and the council will be adopting a more sustainable method of resurfacing to improve durability and ensure better value for money. Instead of skimming the surface, the top layer of the existing road surface will be removed and the road then completely resurfaced. This will increase the lifespan of the roads from 5-10 years under the skimming system to 20-25 years following complete resurfacing.

Council Leader Jason Stacey said “I will not pretend for a moment that the additional investment will make up in one year for the years of underinvestment in this area, but we are making a significant start in trying to turn this around and to deliver the standard of roads and pavements we all expect.”


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