A COUNTY councillor has slammed Lancashire’s plans to carry out ‘extensive’ structural road works in Pendle in the middle of winter.

West Craven’s David Whipp described the plans as ‘madness’ and is urging the county to reschedule the work from January to a milder period of the year.

Coun Whipp said: “It is madness for the county council to programme structural road repair work in the middle of the Pennines in depths of winter.

“One road is on Bleara Moor, over 1,000ft above sea level. Why aren’t they planning to work in the milder coastal districts in midwinter instead of the Pendle hills?”

Lancashire County Council could not confirm which roads would be worked on during January, other than Skipton Road, Barnoldswick, which was due to be ‘patched’ in August.

Finding Skipton Road to be in worse condition than they had originally anticipated, they referred the road for a more intensive ‘surface dressing’ programme, rather than the structural patching, which would just cover up potholes.

Structural patching still needs to take place ahead of the surface dressing but the decision was taken to complete the work in January.

Coun Whipp added: “Apart from snow and ice interfering with resurfacing, what happens if the roads being repaired have to be snow-ploughed?

“And if the weather’s that bad, the repair crews will be put on to winter gritting, so the work won’t be done anyway.”

County roads chief Phil Barrett said: “Surface dressing is a treatment to waterproof the surface and prevent potholes, prolonging the life of the road. More patching work is required to get the best out of the surface dressing treatment which is the reason why this work has now been programmed later in the year.

“This will then allow the surface dressing itself, which is seasonally sensitive, to start in April. Patching in the winter season is typical as we can successfully carry out such operations in temperatures as low as 3C. It’s more efficient and cost-effective to do all the patching at once.”

The council said that that if temperatures fell below 3C in January, the work would have to be delayed.