Some of Lincolnshire’s crumbling back roads could have their surface torn off and replaced with gravel under drastic plans slammed as ‘very concerning’ by a leading opposition councillor.
Members of Lincolnshire County Council’s highways and transport scrutiny committee heard that the authority is considering ‘demetalling’ some minor roads so it can put more resources into repairing major roads, writes Local Democracy Reporter Oliver Castle.
Demetalling is when a local authority removes the hardened, sealed surface of a road, such as asphalt or concrete, and reverts it into an unsealed, natural surface, typically gravel or stone.
Highways bosses say that the proposal will allow the county council to invest in major roads across the county, such as the A15 and A17.
The proposal is part of the authority’s proposed Highways Infrastructure Asset Management Strategy which sets out its list of priorities including the roads, footpaths and traffic signals – and which of these will be at the top of the list for improvements.
But at a meeting on Monday, March 16, Coun Richard Davies (Conservative – Grantham West) warned that this would be a dangerous approach if it’s implemented.
He added: “I’m very concerned, with the greatest respect, with talk of demetalling and deranking roads.
“I think that will cause huge consternation to members of the public who are already facing concerns about the quality of the repairs.
“We all know, and most of us I’m sure here today, will have begun and ended our journey on an unclassified (minor) road.
“The idea that some of those may see their Tarmac ripped up and replaced with Scottish/Alaskan-style gravel will be a very concerning revelation to the people of Lincolnshire.”
Jonathan Evans, head of highways, said that the proposed change would allow the county council to focus on improving major roads.
He added: “I think it’s something we’ve done informally over a number of years.
“I think through this strategy cycle we want to explore it further. I think, without speaking for the members, we’d want to be doing it with engagement with the communities and the legal processes that we’d then have to go through or either lowering the hierarchy.
“We do have large sections of our network – hierarchy 8 – which are unmetalled at the moment.
“So, we do have instances where on a lower hierarchy where there are opportunities to do that and equally sometimes they go the other way.
“We are saying in this strategy cycle is that the cost and the burden to maintain those large networks – something has to give at some point and we want to explore them at least.”
Mr Evans went on to explain that the county council doesn’t have enough resources to resurface all of Lincolnshire’s roads, so it has to prioritise them accordingly.
He added: “I think you all know from previous scrutiny committees that we struggled sometimes to get to road space on national highway networks or slip roads to A road networks and network rail locations.
“We want to improve the condition in those locations to treat them as a slightly different hierarchy so that we don’t have to get into those parts of the network as frequently as we currently do.
“The other element is the sort of tough decisions that we’re going to make in this cycle. At the moment, our assets continue to grow – that’s through adopting new highways or trying to meet public expectations of new areas of the service – whether that’s a footway (footpath) or carriageway (road).
“We are going to consider unmetalling some carriageways, so where there are suitable locations where there’s an alternative route or it’s safe to do so either lowering the hierarchy or placing stopping up orders on some carriageways.”
The proposal will be considered at an executive meeting on April 8 where a final decision will be made.
