Earlier this year, I reported that in addition to the £15m it receives as a grant from central government towards road repairs, Cheshire East Council had taken the decision to borrow and invest a further £7m this year to try and tackle the problem of our crumbling road infrastructure. £22m certainly sounds like a lot of money and so you might wonder why it is that all our roads aren't suddenly perfect.
Whilst the team were on site this week, I took the opportunity to ask the site manager two questions: (i) the extent of the works in square metres covered; and (ii) how much the project had cost the Council. His response was a staggering £328,386 and I thought residents would be interested to know what this entails:
This certainly helps to put that £22m in context. Clearly the work carried out on Macclesfield Road will vary from other projects across the borough, both in terms of length, traffic management and volume of materials used; however, if we assume that Macclesfield Road is an average sized project, the £22m will only fund 67 similar types of road repair project across the borough. Given that Cheshire East Highways manages 2,700km of road network, it's a sobering thought!
