Accrington head welcomes resurfaced road outside school

Lesley Pemberton from Benjamin Hargreaves Primary School in Accrington is delighted with the work to Barnfield Street.

Lancashire County Council spent £64,000 on the project from its £6.1 million Local Deterioration Fund programme, which aims to resurface sections of road which are in the worst condition to reduce the need for pothole repairs this winter.

Ms Pemberton spoke after meeting Cllr Rupert Swarbrick, the authority's highways boss, when he visited Barnfield Street to meet members of the team who were putting the finishing touches to the road markings and speed bumps.

She said: "The no-parking areas at the front of the school are much better because they really had faded to nothing and parents were regularly parking there.

Works in Barnfield Street "The speed bumps have been built up higher, which will slow traffic and make the road safer, and the path that we have to cross on a regular basis to get to the playground is much clearer now for us as we go into winter."

Cllr Swarbrick said: "We understand that potholes are a major bugbear of all road users - I'm one of them, and I totally get that.

"This year we're investing £6.1m pounds in schemes to address the worst areas of potholes, which we don't want as the wet weather increases over winter.

"Bringing all Lancashire’s roads into good condition would require upwards of £160m, but we only receive around £32m in government funding each year. We'd love to invest more, but at the moment we don't have that kind of resource.

"Due to the exceptionally wet weather between Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024 we had far more potholes than usual on our roads during last winter and, even though we brought in extra contractors, our repair teams could not keep up.

"A major focus for us this year has been to make good quality repairs to the worst areas and prevent so many potholes appearing in future."