Last week I reported on social media that the back street behind West Street and Park Avenue had been fully resurfaced.
Since the works were carried out at the end of last week I was contacted by one or two residents expressing concerns that the road surface appeared unfinished, some of the drains were still covered with micro-asphalt and that the road markings and traffic-calming measures were less effective than they were previously.
I had a walk along the street and the road surface did look untidy in places so I raised residents’ concerns with the highways office at county hall and I received the following response yesterday:
Micro Asphalt is a 3 stage process, the first stage is to try and establish the correct profile of the carriageway, this is achieved by applying a regulation course. The second stage is to then to apply the running surface, at this stage the surface will look un-finished with the texture of the material appearing a little untidy. These are normal characteristic of the process and the appearance of the surface will improve considerably once the surface has had time to settle down, this is addressed by the passing of traffic which helps with the embedment of the aggregate and in addition to this the site will also be swept to help clear any excess aggregate. The third stage is the adjustment of the ironwork, this procedure is as follows: Before the site is surfaced all ironwork within the carriageway is masked with tape, on completion the tape is removed unless the cover is very low and would create a hazard if the tape was removed at this stage. Once the surfacing has had time to bed-in a separate crew returns to the site who then uncover and reset all the ironwork to the new carriageway level
I will arrange for DCC Traffic Section to assess regarding specification of the humps
For safety reasons the markings that have been applied are only temporary, permanent markings will be applied in due course
I’ll follow progress with the works identified until they are completed. In the meantime, if you have any highways issues to report please get in touch with me or Stacey at: rob.crute@durham.gov.uk or stacey.deinali@durham.gov.uk
