It’s crap. I don’t know about the rest of the country but Mid Sussex seems to be swamped with roads where people have been incredibly lazy, dug the top layer off the tarmac, shoved a load of gravel on the road, let cars drive it down (with 20mph warning signs), then come back a week later and painted on it.

It’s horrible to ride on, horrible to drive on, and won’t last the winter.

Anyone care to explain? What happened to tarmacadam?

Back in the late 90s someone decided that was the best way to re-surface the M90. That was entertaining.

Maybe Mid Sussex Council paid in cash ?

You might not get a top notch job but you can save a fortune on VAT to make it still well worthwhile.

I’m serious, I think it’s dangerous. I get stones thrown in my face as cars fly around corners at 50/60mph. It’s not their fault, I’d do the same in the car, but the road just falls apart underneath them.

Also not something you notice immediately but after a period of time cycling on it, you realise it seriously impedes progress. It’s very slow stuff to ride on!

I think it’s “surface dressing”. Around here you can still see the lumps where they have just put tar and gravel down over old “slow” markings. The gravel soon goes from the normal tyre tracks so it gets sticky when it’s hot, but there’s still loose gravel at the sides of the road.

Similar in Worcestershire. They did our road in no time at all, scraped it & taped over manhole covers etc. When it came to laying the new surface it looked like something off Whacky Races going up our hill!

They then left the traffic to bed it in and after a week or so sent a road sweeper down to pick up the excess.

As you say, it’ll be gone by the spring. You buy cheap, you buy twice!

Um, they’ve been doing this for decades, you’ve only just noticed?

Definite change of spec on these particular roads. Cheap & nasty.

I do wonder why they do it…?

I do wonder why they do it…?

Because they don’t realise that it won’t last !

Someone should email Mid Sussex District Council a link to this thread, their highways dept is clearly clueless.

It’s probably just a quick cheap fix – they know it won’t last but CBA or don’t have the budget (or CBA with the moaning about closing the road for longer) to do a proper job that will last.

If it’s any help, it is a problem which goes away. As mentioned they’re keen on such cheap measures in Worcestershire – one road I use got done and was in an awful state by the middle of winter, but a year later it was back to the perfectly adequate surface it had before they started.

Isn’t it mean to be an anti-skip road surface? Even though for the first month or so cars wheel spin non-stop on it, till it’s bedded in…unevenly.

The same stuff was laid outside my house and not even 5 months on the holes and pits are awful. On my bike I go in the middle of the lane to avoid serious vibrations. 🙁

I am pretty sure they do it to kill motorcyclists myself. Horrible stuff, and just about everywhere in Cumbria is getting coated with it.

Ditto Surrey, except BoxHill obviously. I asked Peter Ploddy about this on another thread. Hopefully he will explain.

Faz

West Sussex County Council have been doing this for well over 20 years so I guess you must be new to the area?

They’ve had sarky emails from me in the past but shockingly appeared to actually pay attention to my last missive; – They were going to totally furk up surface dress over 6 miles of the London 2 Brighton bike route in the week before the event.

Here’s the transcript

From: cdbs.gatwick.diamond@westsussex.gov.uk
To: mikeanton@hotmail.com
Subject: London to Brighton cycle route
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 11:15:49 +0100

Dear Mr Anton

Thank you for contacting us regarding the surface dressing in Turners Hill/Ardingly. Just so that you are aware we have postponed the work planned here until after the Cycle race has taken place.

I will pass your other comments to my colleagues in the engineering team.

Kind Regards

Maureen

Turners Hill – Ardingly – Lindfield surface dressing.

Any chance that we could have a last minute outbreak of common sense re this planned work?

Notwithstanding the complete waste of time and our money that goes to Hazel & Jefferies to throw chippings all over the countryside, had it not occurred to anyone that the London to Brighton bike ride will be using this stretch of road on Sunday?

As a cyclist, ‘remedial surface dressing’ aka tar and chip is deeply unpleasant to cycle on and this particular stretch of road is actual in reasonable condition.

I suspect the same won’t be said when 30000+ cyclists wend their way over this a few days after it’s been laid.

Furthermore the cowboys, sorry contractors, make no effort to patch potholes before hand so not only do you get a very rough surface to travel on, you get the added bonus of guessing where the stone filled pot holes are.

I really hope there aren’t any mishaps on Sunday.

I guess it’s too late now but would it not be more cost effective to plane and relay the small sections of damaged road, in particular the Paxhill section, and pretty much all of Lindfield High St?

These sections aren’t great to drive on and downright horrible on two wheels.

Cheap fix, budgets run year by year – no long term plans. Plus from what I’ve seen and spoke to, common sense is somewhat lacking in the bulk of council road maint teams.

They used that on my road a few years back, still going strong except where the snowploughs ripped it up a bit. The big difference was that they actually swept up the loose crap.

Seems to be an ever increasing problem 🙁

the worst thing is that there are a few roads around Glasgow where there has been really good jobs done on section (thinking along to fintry after going over the crow road but quite a few other places as well) where the job is finished to a high standard and the tarmac feels as good as you get on a nice spanish or french road…you know the type, you go along and there are no rattles from the bike the only noise being the whirring of the tyres and everything feels good in the world.

The bastards then come back a few weeks / months later and add the tar and chip to the great surface and have make the road unsafe and unpleasant to ride on. 🙁

So it’s deffo not shell-grip then?
I have to say since they put it down at the govan exit end the amount of folk losing it on the s bend just afterwards has plummeted- they must be saving themselves a fortune in barrier repairs!

Surfaced dressed loads of the roads near me. Was out on the road bike the other day when it was sunny and got a big chipping stuck on the front wheel going down a hill, by the time I stopped and pulled it of the tyre it had scratched the crap out of the bottom of my fork 👿

It’s called top dressing and I expect councils do it because they’ve got a contract with a granite chip supplier and need to use up the last of this year’s stock. There can’t be any other sensible reason.

faz083 – Member

It’s crap. I don’t know about the rest of the country but Mid Sussex seems to be swamped with roads where people have been incredibly lazy, dug the top layer off the tarmac, shoved a load of gravel on the road, let cars drive it down (with 20mph warning signs), then come back a week later and painted on it.

It’s horrible to ride on, horrible to drive on, and won’t last the winter.

Same here in Essex. Road still has all the same dents, bumps & tramlines but now they are covered in gravel. Plus I’ve met quite a few cool dudes coming the other way at full speed who’ve peppered my car with stone chippings.

Yeah hate it myself, I wish there could be a legal challenge to it as it makes it dangerous for some road users. Around where I am they never seem to do the follow-up sweeping either so weeks/months later you still have loose gravel collecting at the sides and middle of the roads, just in the right spot to cause a crash if descending around a bend.

As noted above it’s down to long term planning and budgeting. Surface dressing is simply cheaper, quicker and easier than re-surfacing in the shorter term.

In France they put a lot more effort into this and when they re-surface major roads they put down layers of what is essentially fibre glass mesh between the tarmacadam to increase it’s lifespan. This is very cost effective but does mean forking out slightly more than normal. Also, it would involve the Highways Agency keeping up with modern technology (unlikely), or Council Highways Departments stepping into the 21st Century (highly unlikely).

Oh and in a previous discussion with WSCC, I was told “we surface dress roads in a similar vein to you periodically repainting woodwork to protect it”.

Strangely I never received a reply when I asked why you would gloss over rotten woodwork……………….

The amount of gravel going down in our area has actually reduced in recent years. The only reason I can think of for this is that the cost of it has gone up, so the contractors need it to go further. – Won’t have anything to do with doing a better job. 🙄

I watched an oncoming pickup manage a big tailslide and subsequent fishtail, as he tried to drive at normal speed on the way out of Laughton, on just this surface. That’s the road that the local cycling club run very frequent time trials along. Well done East Sussex council people…

Pretty sure its because councils have to by law maintain the roads to a certain standard. They probably don’t have the budget to lay a fresh surface, so they rip the top off and lay a surface dressing down.

They know it won’t last, but on some roads tarmac doesn’t last either so its cheaper to dress a road every few years than lay a new surface every 5 years.

I hate it, horrible to drive and ride on. That won’t stop them using it though.