As you may well recall in one of my earlier columns I mentioned the work that was being carried out by Devon County Councils material lab to find a suitable material to patch concrete roads. Higher Woolbrook Park in Sidmouth has been used as a trial site, which I worked extremely hard to get for the residents.
The road is like many residential roads around Sidmouth that were made up of concrete sections when the estate was built and several years later a thin layer of tarmac was laid to make the road look more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Over the last few years, some of this tarmac surface has started to peel away from the concrete and the road has developed a similar concrete cancer as was found in multi-storey car parks and shallow defects appeared (potholes). In places these started to get larger and I called for them to be filled. However, at that time there wasn’t a material the County Council’s term maintenance contractor used that was suitable and that’s when our Materials Lab got involved, carrying out many hours of tests on different substitute materials to see if any would work.

Finally, working with our contractors we believe a solution has been found and Higher Woolbrook Park has undergone the first of a two-stage process by carrying out patching works to the affected areas. Apart from a few remedial works this now has to be left for up to 12 months to allow the work carried out to oxidise. Then, as long as this is successful and hasn’t failed, the second stage of micro asphalt will be applied.

Unfortunately, we can’t carry out the second stage any sooner because if we did and the first stage starts to fail through not giving time to oxidise then we would have to remove all the dressing and that would be extremely costly.

We’ve got to get this right and if successful the process can be rolled out to the many other concrete road sites that are also starting to show similar signs to that which have been seen at Higher Woolbrook Park.

I do understand that the work that has been carried out doesn’t look that pleasing to the eye but this is a huge learning curve for everyone and the road is now free of defects. So let’s watch this space.

There’s also some great news for the Sid Valley with all the works now being identified to convert the majority of streetlights within Sidmouth, Sidford and Sidbury over to LED and with the works orders going to the contractor SSE over the next few days means conversion works will be starting within the next couple of weeks.

As part of this work and installation the new lanterns will be fitted with the required cells to permit them to be monitored and controlled via the Telensa base station that we have installed in Sidgard Road. This enables the lighting to be controlled remotely from Exeter and will also enable faults to be identified reducing the need to carry out scouting.

Unfortunately, the ornate lanterns that are in situ in various locations around the town centre and Esplanade will not be converted during the first batch of works as separate orders need to be made due to the lead time for manufacture and delivery of the new lanterns but these will be converted over to LED at a later date this year.