Road surface to come up for second time (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Road surface to come up for second time

FOR the second time in eight months, the tarmac surface laid during phase one of the work on Cirencester's Traffic and Environment Plan is to be replaced.

Silver Street, Park Street and Park Lane will all be closed in sequence over the coming weekend while the work is done.

Tony Jones, Cotswold District Council's head of planning, said this week: "The road surface is not satisfactory. "We have never been happy with it and have finally got the agreement of the contractors to come in and put it right.

Martin Summerell, acting Cotswold divisional surveyor, confirmed: "The top surface put down last winter has failed and is being replaced at the contractors' expense."

He said the top inch or inch and a half of the surface, which had broken up, would be planed off and replaced.

Mr Summerell said the county council had insisted the work was done at a weekend in order to minimise disruption in the town, and that although there would be road closures local traffic would still be able to gain access to the area.

"Explanatory boards will be out, and there will be people on site to guide people," he said.

He said that if the weather was good, the work would be completed within the weekend, leaving only minor matters to be completed during the following few days.

Silver Street will be closed on Saturday morning and the work, which will start at its junction with Castle Street, will move down towards the Corinium Museum.

Traffic wishing to get into the Cecily Hill-Thomas Street area will be able to do so by following the work down Silver Street where the normal one-way system will be reversed.

Park Street and then Park Lane will be planed later in the day. The new surface will go down on Sunday, first in Silver Street, and vehicles will again be allowed to use it to travel in the reverse direction.

"Anyone wishing to go into Black Jack Street," said Mr Summerell, "will be able to do so, either in the normal direction from Silver Street or in the reverse direction to normal from West Market Place, depending upon the time of day."

The new surface, comprising a mix of materials which had been used successfully in other places, was first patched last October, only two weeks after being laid, when parts of it broke up.