I don't know how you feel about this subject, but as a motorcyclist i have a dislike to Council's resurfacing any road with the loose grit treatment. Wirral Council seems to be a big fan of it, as over the last two or three years have covered many roads with this muck, as i like to call it, its cheap and nasty!
Leasowe road, the lower part was done around two years ago, then they had to re tarmac some parts of it, where the old hospital used to be, entrance's to side roads as the traffic coming in and out was ripping it apart.Once its down it takes a year or two [ depending on the volume of traffic ] for the loose grit to wear off the top, to leave a rough texture below, now this is good as it gives better braking in the wet etc, but in the meantime we have to put up with the loose stuff, the loose chipping going everywhere, into your brake calipers, sticking to you're hot manifolds, tread on the tires, not to mention all over the footpaths where it remains for years to come, blocking the grids and we wonder why we have flooded roads?.
So they have been at it again, Liscard road next to Central park, there was nothing wrong with that road, ok it had some cracks here and there, the biggest problem was the center joint where both lanes meet, and where the tarmac was laid a number of years back, this had started to break away causing a narrow strip down the middle of this road, This could have been taken care of quickly by fill with hot bitumen. What have Wirral Council done, walking along this road this morning, just covered it with grit, you can still see where it dips down in the center [ never even bothered to fill it], any dips or low points in this road also show up, in some areas it looks like a ship has gone over it leaving a wake behind. Some of the side roads have grit being dragged in as traffic turns in. Looking at what the road was and what they have done to it, i am appalled, if this is what i am paying Council Tax for, and i still see other roads left for decades just falling apart. I would also like to know why we have some many different types of road surfaces on one stretch of road
Roads are important for keeping the Country moving, getting people into work, schools, shops and getting freight from once place to another, but also in making sure people using/near them are safe!,

Just read this
"Asphalt is particularly prone to potholes and is susceptible to damage from extremes of weather and temperature. And, since bitumen is an oil product, it is not truly sustainable long-term. Both asphalt and concrete road surfaces are also expensive to build and maintain."

I suspect the real reason Wirral Council isn't using asphalt is because of the expense. Also, it is more time consuming laying new asphalt, which in turn frustrates road users even more.

They're doing this round Hightown and Crosby at the moment too.

It's a very poor way of doing the roads and a lot of councils stopped doing it a long time ago. A few years back they did this on Saughall Rd, Moreton and the mess was unbelievable. The tanker containing the tar was dripping everywhere and they even parked it up on the pavement! As has been said the grit is everywhere and you just have to drive in the ruts where cars have driven previously. This council loves to spend public money badly - spread tarmac on the pavements but don't cut overhanging plants and bushes just brush the tar round them then you see the workers walking through the wet tar. Sadly it'll never change. I'd like to say speak to your local Councillor about it but I've been there and done that years ago!

Some time in October Leasowe Road from Castleway North to Reeds Lane getting resurfaced.

Yet another area where the Government have taken control from the Council but let the Council take the blame. Council starved of free funds, all things like this are mostly financed by bidding for Government grants, if it is not done the way the Government wants then the Council doesn't win the grant. The grants are limited so the Councils have to compete against other Councils.

The side effect is the plethora of documents that have to be created for planning, policies, strategies, management etc etc most of which consists of the most inane or obvious statements, repetitions and contradictions - because it has to be done the way the Government specify.

Local matters should be controlled by the Council, they should have one budget and decide how that money is best spent to meet local needs. That is the purpose of having a Council.

I have written to Angela Eagle with regards this matter of wasting public money covering up a perfectly good road with this rubbish, and had a nice reply from her, she has written to the Council wanting to know the same questions i want answering. I was told years ago that the reason behind laying this covering on top, was to protect the road below, which i find unbelievable.If a wall in you lounge/ bedroom etc had cracks in it, be they hairline cracks or very large deep ones, you would mix up some filler and fill those cracks, sand smooth and paint or apply wallpaper to said wall, the Council idea is just cover it with wallpaper, the cracks are hidden and the paper looks great, sadly over time the cracks below the paper spread and the paper starts to peel off the wall, so the paper has to be stripped off, the plaster knocked off and the whole wall needs to be re-rendered costing a lot more in the long run.
If the Council is short of money why is it wasting it doing this type of work, any one been down King street/Brighton street, ripping all the flags up and laying tarmac down, lots count of the number of blokes working there and the plant machinery, i would have thought around two weeks to complete this work, its been five weeks so far, and the workmen weren't there this morning, that's where your tax money is being wasted.
Diggingdeeper, i wish Government would scrap Councils and run it from White hall, dishing out funding depending on the number of people living in that area, even if it means putting up income tax to scrap council tax.

Whitehall haven't got a clue about the local issues hence the ridiculous targets they have set for the number of new houses required on the Wirral - even their own revised statistics show their numbers were grossly over-inflated, yet they are holding Wirral to the old numbers.

Whitehall are Governed by the Government whose prime Tory interest is throwing as much money as possible in the direction of rich investors.

Nothings changed since 2015 when (I think it was) you posted 'New Brighton Prom Road'.

I did some looking on the web and wrote a reply (below). Those problems of 2015 have not gone away and I'm not even sure that they are using the same material as this seems inferior to me. Certainly the overall smoothness is none exsistant. The joins are likely to cause a potentially lethal effect known as 'white-lineing', which is when the wheels of cyclists and motorcyclists get pulled off their intended course by the ridge left from white lines, overbanding and overlapping resurfacing.

From 2015 -

"I felt the same as DD about this type of surfacing.

The thing is, it is supposed to be good at filling the cracks and other small potholes and imperfections to a reasonable depth. Also it is supposed to be good at covering up 'reflective cracking', that is to say where previous reinstatement work is beginning to show through again. Quite often, this was where the green tubes for cable tv were laid about 20 years ago - only a few inches down, but what a legacy. To be fair, plenty of other examples are out there.

The small stones that are used (called dressing) are quite sharp and hard wearing, so a layer of about 8 to 10 mm is possible, which means that in a lot of cases, ironworks just need to be masked rather than raised. The stones are more expensive than the ones used in previous 'hot rolled' surfaces, but in a thinner coating it gives a larger spreading area for a given weight.

A metal roller must not be used to press the dressing into the adhesive bitumen undercoat, but a rubber one is ok - so they just let the cars do it a couple of hours later. That is another advantage - the short time-scale before traffic can go on it due to it being thin. The excess dressing can be swept away after 24 hours and re-used.

All this sounds ideal, but I still don't trust the stuff. I keep expecting the surface to be ripped off on a hot day if someone breaks hard. The stone dressing just seems to keep detaching from the surface. Even if the sweeper wagon comes along each week, there always seems to be a hazard from an accumulation of loose stones.

Just look at different roads. Some seem to be good from Day 1, while others seem to vary. This is often because one section was laid on one day and another on a different day. It seems that it takes a good resurfacing gang to get consistent results by adjusting the mix according to the weather and other conditions.

The manufacturers web sites make interesting reading, but I would recommend a site called Highways Maintenance which is written by a now retired highways engineer, and contains a wealth us useful information. How do you measure skid resistance, and what is a sand test? You can find out.

By the way, I don't think he likes this 'cheap stuff' either."

Hi Norton, Thanks for that reply, yes that was me back in 2015 going on about the resurfacing on the prom road in New Brighton, and five years on you can see the result of this when you drive along it.
I was out on the bike yesterday morning and can't believe the amount of roads the Council has done with this stuff, and looking at the bottom of Leasowe road there are still two or three mountains of this grit so they aren't finished with it yet. So they are going to do Leasowe road with it in Oct, They did it a few years back where the old hospital was then had to go over it where the side roads are, so it goes to show it doesn't work?
Liscard road next to Central park was ok, one or two crack which could have been easy fix, the main problem i saw was the large crack down the centre of the road where the two sides me. After the new grit was laid last week, its still there, you think they would have filled it first?
I still say if you have cracks on your wall in the house you scrap them out and polyfiller them, if its really bad, knock of the old plaster and re-render it, then wallpaper or paint on the top, Wirral Council idea is just cover the wall in a textured paint,
As for the loose grit, that ends up hundreds of metres down the road, in the grids and all over the pavements for years to come!