A residential street in Brightlingsea is set for £600,000 worth of roadworks – the most expensive project of its kind in the the county.
Residents in Bellfield Avenue have complained for years about the uneven state of the road, which is formed from concrete slabs built in the 1950s that no longer have adequate foundations. The deterioration of a tarmac covering has further contributed to the poor state of the surface.
Now Essex County Council (ECC) teams are set to completely replace at least two-thirds of the road and resurface the rest – a major project that could see it closed for most of November and December.
“This will be the biggest single engineering project in Essex for a local road this year – and the most expensive,” said Brightlingsea’s county councillor Alan Goggin, who said the work will involve completely removing many of the concrete slabs.
Cllr Goggin estimated that the road has had at least 60 repairs over the last four years which didn’t resolve the underlying issues – revealed following a comprehensive survey.
Work is scheduled to start on October 28 and residents can expect to face disruption and access issues. The road is also used by the town’s bus services as a link between Regent Road and Chapel Road, and it’s understood that while the road is closed they will run along Red Barn Road into Chapel Road, with a temporary bus stop replacing the stops in Regent Road and Bellfield Avenue.
• ECC says that 21 new road surfacing schemes have been undertaken in the first weeks of its £25 million Priority One campaign, which has put additional crews and resources into highways maintenance across the county.
Works in Tendring are scheduled and the funding is in addition to existing maintenance budgets and the council says represents the single largest investment into improving the county’s highways.
The £25 million investment comes after £12 million of extra investment was announced earlier this year for highways. £8 million of this supports the Members’ Highways Initiative, where county council members prioritise the issues they want Essex Highways crews to repair. A separate £39 million was also set aside this year for the county’s annual resurfacing programme.
