£80m investment to improve region’s roads announced

More than £80m of maintenance improvements will be taking place on Yorkshire’s roads this year, Highways England has announced.

The work, which it said is in addition to the major improvement schemes taking place across the region, includes resurfacing more than 207 miles of lanes.

Nearly 350,000 metres of road markings will be renewed which is enough to lay a single white line between Leeds and Edinburgh.

Highways England said 10,000 metres of new concrete barrier and over 16,000 metres of steel safety fence will be replaced, while 54,000 metres of drainage around the network will be renewed as well as boundary fences.

Drainage and barrier work is due to start next week on the M62 between Rothwell and Normanton, and Ferrybridge and the A19 Selby junction.

Bridge maintenance work is also starting at the Lofthouse interchange where the M1 and M62 meet.

Resurfacing work has also been carried out on the M62 at North Cave and 35,840 sq m of carriageway was resurfaced along the A63 recently just outside of Hull.

Highways England’s service delivery team leader for Yorkshire and the Humber, Mark Ramsden, said: “This investment will see 89 separate schemes taking place throughout the region and will improve the journeys for the hundreds of thousands of drivers who use our roads every day.

“We are always looking at how we can improve things for our customers and that is why this year we are packaging our work together so that work in one area is carried out at the same time rather than us revisiting the area several times a year to minimise disruption for customers. We are also challenging our contractors to be as efficient as possible in planning and delivering the work.”