A COUNCILLOR has called for a re-think after it was announced a road resurfacing project would take place in the middle of the night.

Bosses said the five-week project around Darwen Academy would be carried out between 6pm and 2am to ‘minimise the impact on the highway network and disruption and inconvenience to residents’.

But Lib Dem councillor Roy Davies, for Sudell ward, raised fears about sleepless nights for people living around the site.

He said: “If I was a resident around there, I don’t think I would want to hear JCBs smashing around at 2am.

“I don’t think they are exactly being realistic. People do need to sleep. A re-think is perhaps needed.”

Labour’s Dave Smith said the timing was ‘unusual’ but he did not think many residents would be affected because there were not many houses on the stretches being resurfaced.

The work forms part of the Darwen Academy highways changes ahead of the new school’s opening in September.

The plans were drawn up after a safety audit highlighted the need for changes, including better traffic signals at Redearth Road and Sudell Road junction, a bus layby in Sudell Road, a zebra crossing at the junction of Crown Street and Bank Street and a 20mph zone in Redearth Road and Sudell Road.

In an email to councillors, Capita Symonds, the private company that runs Blackburn with Darwen’s roads, said resurfacing work could begin immediately now that a new gas supply pipe had been installed on Sudell Road.

The stretches affected are Hardman Way, Sudell Road from Hardman Way to Ratcliffe Street, Redearth Road from Hardman Way to Hamer Street and Hamer Street itself.