The saga of Queens Road continues. The road was scheduled for full resurfacing during 2013/14 but the work was deferred due to Surrey County Council concentrating on the impact the floods had hit other parts of Woking. The resurfacing work is part of Operation Horizon and when SCC published their first work schedule for 2014/15 Queens Road was not listed. The KRA asked Cllr. Hussain to find out what was happening and we then received two different notices that the work was to be done.

At a meeting of SCC and WBC held on 24 September we were told that the earliest Queens Road could be resurfaced would be April 2015. The reason for this further delay, as explained by representatives of SCC, was that the tar that makes up the current road surface is contaminated. Both myself and Cllr. Hussain tried to find out more detail of what this meant but detail was hard to come by. The report from SCC included the following explanation:-

‘Coring of roads has identified seven roads have a high presence of Tar bound material. Since 1982 this material has been classified as a hazardous material and can only be disposed of at specialist landfill sites.

At current rates this would be over £150 per tonne adding nearly £300,000 to scheme costs.

However a new solution has been identified that will enable tar to be recycled and costs reduced to approximately £50 to £70 per tonne. The solution will not be available until April 2015 and therefore decision to defer these seven sites.

Surrey Highways have explored alternative solutions that could have been delivered this year however, although product was successful in removing tar cost, the overall construction methods were found to be invasive for residents and therefore an alternative solution has been identified.’

So they are the facts. When asked what will happen in the meantime Surrey Highways stated that they would maintain the road to the statutory level for road safety. Personally, I am not sure what that means.

Phil Stubbs