Dozens of roads in Fylde, Wyre and the Ribble Valley will be resurfaced or undergo preventative repairs over the next 12 months.
Lancashire County Council’s cabinet has agreed a list of 80 individual schemes to be carried out – several of which involve more than one route.
They make up the annual set of pre-planned highways maintenance projects that the authority, whose patch excludes Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, undertakes each year – and are separate to the day-to-day ‘reactive’ work done to fix individual potholes as they appear.
Read more: Seventeen roads in Preston scheduled for pre-planned resurfacing or repair projects
Almost £21m has been set aside for scheduled road repair jobs in the 2026/27 financial year, comprising a combination of full resurfacing works and pre-emptive ‘surface dressing’ – a special process that not only improves the condition of the carriageway, but seals it to prevent future damage caused by water entering cracks in the road. The figure also includes £440k for footpath repairs.
The cash comes from an overall £72m pot that County Hall has this year set aside for upkeep of its highways – £48.2m of which is government funding, supplemented by £18.4m agreed at the county council’s budget last month, along with unspent money carried over from last year.
It is expected that at least £28m of the total amount available will be swallowed up by filling in potholes that materialise during the year ahead and meet the ‘intervention’ level for repair – meaning that they are at least 40mm deep. However, as the number of those fixes cannot be predicted, more funding might have to be allocated for that purpose as the year progresses – which would come at the expense of some of the pre-planned projects.
Tranches of the £72m are also reserved for the maintenance of bridges and other structures (£6.5m), traffic lights (£750k), streetlamps (£5.3m) and drainage (£1.9m).
At the cabinet meeting where the budget apportionments and individual schemes were agreed, Reform UK’s cabinet member for highways and transport, Warren Goldsworthy, said investment had been “prioritised using a risk-based, data-driven approach, ensuring funding is targeted where it will have the greatest long-term benefit”.
Progressive Lancashire opposition group leader Azhar Ali called on the authority to restart the meetings it used to hold with county councillors within each district at which they could put forward suggestions for roads that needed attention in their own areas. That practice was stopped under the previous Conservative administration at County Hall.
County Cllr Goldsworthy said he would “really encourage” members to highlight problem roads in their patches, but said he was committed to a “data-driven” strategy.
He cautioned against “the danger” of “more important” councillors managing to secure repairs that were not supported by a dispassionate assessment of the condition of the roads in question.
“Let the officers drive [any suggestions] through the data and let’s get the right roads done,” County Cllr Goldsworthy added.
However, he agreed with Progressive Lancashire deputy leader Gina Dowding who said that there needed to be “checks and balances from…humans when AI doesn’t get it right every time”.
The authority has recently deployed artificial intelligence (AI)-driven cameras to carry out inspections of the 4,600 miles of highway for which it is responsible.
The county council’s in-house teams undertake the resurfacing and surface dressing schemes approved by the cabinet, along with repairs of the most urgent emerging potholes. A single third-party contractor, Blackburn-based Multevo, has – since last year – been employed to fix those potholes with longer, five-day and 20-day target response times.
Fylde
A583 Preston New Road – from Tarnbrick Bridge to junction with Weeton Road/Fox Lane Ends and from junction with Weeton Road/Fox Lane Ends to outside the Lytham Window Company – preventative work
A583 Preston New Road – traffic light junction at Weeton Road/Fox Lane Ends (B5260) and traffic light junction at Whitehill Road/Peel Road – resurfacing
A584 Clifton Drive South – from lighting column 128 to bus stop at St. Thomas Road junction – preventative work
A584 Lytham Road – from supermarket junction to West End Lane – preventative work
A585 Fleetwood Road – from outside Villa Express Hotels to the ‘Welcome to Wesham’ sign – preventative work
A586 Garstang Road – from Great Eccleston village sign to 100m before Wall Lane junction [also crosses into Wyre] – preventative work
B5233 St Annes Road West – from St. David’s Road South to zebra crossing at property no.56 and from Garden Street to zebra crossing at Orchard Road – resurfacing
Chain Lane – from Bibby Drive to Mythop Road – special project
Grange Road – full length – resurfacing
Links Gate – full length – resurfacing
Meagles Lane and Meagles Road – section repairs – special project
Ribble Valley
A59 Whalley Bypass – from Petre Wood/Langho roundabout for 383m in a north easterly direction – resurfacing
Clitheroe Road – from Whins Lane to Clitheroe Bypass (A59) – preventative work
Wyre
Back Lane and Highgate Lane – full lengths – preventative work
Bleasdale Avenue, Garstang Close and Grizedale Avenue – full lengths of each – resurfacing
Cockerham Road – from Cockerham canal bridge to Garstang Road (B5272) [see also Lancaster] – preventative work
Curzon Road – full length – resurfacing
Dimples Lane – from Bond Lane to canal bridge – resurfacing
Green Dicks Lane and Pilling Lane – from Head Dyke Lane to newly-laid section and from 50m after property no.304 to property no. 257c – preventative work
Green Dicks Lane – from 25m south of Fluke Hall Lane to Carr House Stud Farm – resurfacing
Ormerod Street – from Heys Street to Butts Lane – resurfacing
Roylen Avenue – full length – resurfacing
School Lane – from Park Lane to Church Lane – preventative work
Shakespeare Road – from Dronfield Road to Beach Road – resurfacing
Whinfield Avenue – full length – resurfacing
Back Lane and Highgate Lane – full lengths – preventative work
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