Could retexturing roads save money and make them safer?

A council is deploying a new method of restoring roads and is hoping to make them safer for drivers.

Retexturing strips away built-up grime to expose the stone beneath and improve grip for a fraction of the materials, energy and cost resurfacing needs.

The method, which is already used by councils in Berkshire and Dorset, is now being trialled by Wokingham Borough Council for the first time.

It is one of five treatments the council uses to maintain its roads and footways and the authority says it's a way of making its limited budget go further.

Retexturing is designed to fix roads that become smooth and "fatted" over time.

This happens when rising bitumen swallows the stone chips meant to give tyres their grip.

The process involves two methods:

• Hydro-blasting, which uses high-pressure water to strip away the excess bitumen

• Shot blasting, which fires small pieces of steel abrasive at the surface to "rough it up" and restore its texture.

Because no new material is laid down, Wokingham Borough Council says the process uses far less carbon than other treatments.

Its own figures suggest retexturing can cut carbon emissions by up to 96% compared with a full resurfacing job.

The purpose of retexturing is to restore skid resistance - how well a tyre grips the road surface, particularly in wet weather.

Aberdeenshire Council recorded no crashes at five treated sites in the eight months after retexturing was carried out there, having logged 34 accidents at the same sites in the year before.

But the improvements are not permanent. Skid resistance fades again over time, particularly on roads with heavy traffic, and retexturing does not fix underlying structural problems on a road.

Although the method is new to Wokingham, retexturing itself is not a new technique and has been used by councils across the UK for more than a decade.

West Berkshire Council has run retexturing programmes for several years, while Dorset Council says the process has saved it more than £1.2m, as well as cutting carbon emissions by 335 tonnes compared with resurfacing the same roads.

It has also been used in West Sussex, Cumbria, Lincolnshire and across Wales.

Wokingham Borough Council says the method is well established in other parts of the country, and says it is trialling it now as part of a wider push to make its maintenance budget stretch further.

The trial is running in Wokingham throughout September and includes dozens of streets.

Roads in Wokingham town centre - including sections of Finchampstead Road, Wellington Road and Glebelands Road - along with two stretches of the A329(M), are being treated first.

Work will then shift to a larger cluster of sites along Wokingham Road in Earley in the second week of the month.

The council says the exact schedule may change depending on the weather.

Residents are advised to check its interactive roadworks map for the latest dates for their street.