Highways crews in Staffordshire have completed improvements and resurfacing work on a busy road in Leek.

The £300,000 scheme, on the A53 Broad Street between Daintry Street and the A520 Compton Junction, included improvements to drainage, kerbing, footway patching and road resurfacing. 

The work took four weeks to complete, with crews working outside of peak hours when the roads were quieter to keep disruption to a minimum. Resurfacing work was carried out on a Sunday, when the traffic was at its quietest. Crews also worked hard, despite some inclement weather, to ensure the works were completed within the 4-week timescale. 

The scheme has been funded through the Department for Transport’s pothole funding announced earlier in the year and is in addition to a £30 million investment by Staffordshire County Council in its roads over the next two years.

Staffordshire’s roads will be getting a welcome funding boost over the next few years.

Highways bosses at Staffordshire County Council have welcomed a government announcement that £8.3 billion will be invested into England’s roads over the next 11 years.

A total of £2.2 billion will be invested in the West and East Midlands alone, with more than £186 million coming to Staffordshire over the 11 year period.

The funding is part of the Government’s Network North plan to spend the money saved by cancelling HS2 north of Birmingham.

An initial £3.188 million has been made available in-year, which is in addition to the £20 million the authority has already invested in the repair and maintenance of highways over the past 12 months.

With more than 6,000km of roads, the county council has undertaken a comprehensive programme of repair and resurfacing. 

This latest fund will be allocated to maintaining, repairing and improving the county’s roads.

Staffordshire’s army of gritters rolled out for the first time this season, as temperatures across the county dropped to below freezing.

The county council’s fleet of 37 gritters were first in action on the weekend of November 25, as road surface temperatures plummeted.

Armed more than 20,000 tonnes of salt stockpiled, highways crews are equipped to battle any adverse weather conditions coming Staffordshire’s way.

Temperatures and road conditions across the network are monitored from weather stations across the county, and a team of winter decision makers make the call on whether to roll out the gritters.

On routine winter days and nights gritters will be focusing on the major routes and extending to the wider network in prolonged ice and snow conditions.

The county’s hill contractors are also called into action on the higher ground in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

With temperatures remaining low, crews will continue to roll out across the county over the next few days.

As part of the preventive maintenance programme highways, our crews successfully conducted resurfacing work along the High Street stretch in Cheadle. The process involved addressing potholes and pavement issues, followed by the application of a micro asphalt layer.

Additionally, kerbing and ironwork adjustments were carried out.

At the same time, County Councillor Mark Deaville and Town Councillor Paul Keeling took the opportunity to survey people on the existing parking restrictions on the High Street, and explore whether adding short-stay parking bays would support shoppers and local businesses.

The Town Council compiled a report based on informal consultations with businesses, which the county council's Highways Team then reviewed with local councillors to develop it into a potential scheme. The proposed introduction of short-stay parking bays along sections of High Street will now be considered for an experimental Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) in the coming year.

Following this confirmation, the crew has reinstated only the existing lines and road markings. The proposed parking bay areas could be implemented after further consultation in 2024.