September 2024

Hello and welcome to the Highways Newsletter for Stafford Borough

Welcome to your monthly highways newsletter for Stafford and Stone – keeping you up to date with upcoming schemes, completed projects and repairs

County’s pothole focus sees more than 11,000 fixed in three months

An £8 million investment into defect repairs in Staffordshire is already seeing results.

Since May, when the investment into Staffordshire’s roads was announced, more than 11,300 potholes have been repaired across the county.

Compared to last year, the work means there has been a 19% increase in the amount of defects repaired.

Added to this, thousands of gulleys have been cleaned in an effort to tackle drainage issues and ensure the county is prepared for extreme wet weather.

The investment has seen extra crews brought in to focus on fixing Staffordshire’s roads. Up to eight extra crews will be working around the county carrying out pothole repairs and tackling drainage issues over a 12-month period.

The initiative is also seeing groundbreaking technology such as the JCB Pothole Pro, Thermal Road Repairs machine and the Roadmaster, as well as traditional cut and break crews, pulling out all the stops to repair as many defects as possible.

With last winter being one of the wettest and stormiest on record, crews have seen a major increase in reported defects compared to previous years.

Staffordshire County Council Cabinet Member for Strategic Highways Mark Deaville said: “Last winter was wet and stormy, and this summer has also seen more rainfall than we would normally expect, which obviously takes its toll on our roads.

“This is why we opted to invest £8 million into fixing defects and clearing drainage issues. It’s fantastic that we’re already seeing results, and the comments I have had from local residents shows that our efforts are already making a difference in local communities.

“Potholes and poor drainage affect everyone who uses our roads, and we know when these issues are reported, our residents expect us to fix them quickly. We’ll continue to focus our efforts over the next few months, to ensure we are in a really good place when the bad weather once again hits our county.”

Weeping Cross improvements set for completion next month

Improvements at Stafford’s Weeping Cross roundabouts on the junctions of Milford Road, Baswich Lane and Cannock Road are progressing well and set to be completed next month.

Work along Radford Bank is also continuing, where a temporary one-way order towards town is in place.

Overnight closures on the roundabouts have enabled resurfacing to take place during the week. Ironwork replacement will take place next week meaning there won’t be any overnight closures. Further overnight closures will be needed to complete resurfacing from Monday 7 October to Saturday 12 October (to 6am) and then Monday 14 October to Thursday 17 October (to 6am).

The overall scheme will see improvements from the A34 Weeping Cross to the Queensville island. This phase will see final surfacing to complete works at Weeping Cross. The next phase to Radford Bank will continue in daytime while the overnight work takes place at Weeping Cross.

Then it will be followed by works on the section from Queensville to Queensway next spring. This includes road and footway resurfacing from the junction into the town centre, new pedestrian crossings and cycleways. There will also be maintenance of the Grade II Listed Radford River Bridge.

A video explaining the scheme and its benefits can be viewed on the county council’s Facebook page.

Our environmental teams making a difference

Extra environmental teams have now been deployed to tidy up footpaths, clear weeds and cut back overgrown hedges across Stafford and Stone.

This is important work and helps avoid structural damage to highway infrastructure and provide a safe environment for both pedestrian and drivers.

Even just clearing overgrown weeds, cutting back hedgerows and cutting the grass can help improve visibility and make a dramatic difference.

Pictured is recent work completed in Stone on the path from Stafford Road to Brooms Road.

Our highways teams will also be carrying out surfacing and patching work on Stafford roads in October. This will take place from 7 to 11 October and on streets including:

• Meyrick Road, Cramer Street, Garden Street, Sabine Street, Lawrence Street, and Ranshaw Drive
• Smallman Street, Blakiston Street, Corporation Street back alley, St John’s Walk, Westhead Avenue and Mynors Street.

I want to take the time to thank you for your patience whilst important highways work takes place across the borough.

We are delivering a huge repair programme that will see us double down on fixing more roads across Staffordshire over the next year.

We understand that road works can cause inconvenience but they are necessary to maintain and improve our highways network. Please be assured that our crews will continue to do their best to reduce disruption as much as possible.

See you next month.

County Councillor Keith Flunder

Cabinet Support Member for Highways North

This update is produced and distributed by Staffordshire County Council. If you wish to follow up on anything in this update then please contact us by email at communications@staffordshire.gov.uk

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