Surface dressing - video transcript

[Caption] Surface dressing - A Kent County Council video guide

Neil Tree, a resurfacing team leader, explains the process of surface dressing.

Neil: "Kent County Council looks after over 5000 miles of roads and we inspect the highway network on a regular basis, from this we put together an annual resurfacing programme.

To achieve maximum value for money, we look to extend the life of our highways by applying surface dressing rather than digging up the road.

Surface dressing is a preventative type of maintenance and is used to seal and stop it from deteriorating to the point where it needs to be dug up.

Surface dressing involves applying a thin layer of bituminous binder and stone chippings to the road surface and is used on a variety of different of roads.

Surface dressing is much cheaper than digging up the road and can extend the life of a road by up to 10 years. This means that many more roads in Kent can be resurfaced and is therefore good news for Kent taxpayers and road users.

Surface dressing is quick to apply, which means less disruption to road users, residents, local businesses and the emergency services. Surface dressing is applied directly onto the existing road in 2 stages: The first is the application of a hot binder which is sprayed onto the road surface and the second is the laying of chippings onto the binder. Sometimes we lay 2 or more layers of chippings depending on the design.

These layers seal the surface to prevent water penetration, restore texture and improve skid resistance. The carriageway is then rolled using a rubber wheeled roller. This is to ensure the chippings are properly embedded and stick into the binder permanently, and consequently we erect 20mph speed limit signs to slow vehicles down as they pass over the new surface.

Please stick to the speed limit as there is a skid risk and you could cause damage to other road users.

These signs will be left on site until the road has settled down and all the programme sweeps have been carried out.

During this initial couple of days the road can look a bit messy with a lot of loose stones on the surface, it is important that this is the case to ensure the maximum amount of stones embeds into the binder. We do keep an eye on this and regular sweeping is carried out.

Generally after 7 days the majority of the chippings would have been removed and the road will look much better, at this point the road markings can then be reinstated.

It is inevitable that residents and businesses near the works will experience some disruption, but we will try to keep these to a minimum. Access to properties will need to be restricted for a short period while work is carried out in front of each property. If you have any particular access needs, please let the workforce on the site know. If your vehicle is usually parked on the carriageway, please make sure you park it elsewhere during the works."

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