Date published: 2026-04-13 | Category: Delivering for local residents, Roads, travel and transport
A £5 million programme of road improvements across Bath & North East Somerset is rolling out as the council kicks off its 2026 resurfacing schemes.
The council is investing in highway maintenance and will also spend £950,000 resurfacing footways, alongside maintaining and making improvements to other assets like street lights, drains, public rights of way and bridges.
Resurfacing works will run from now until the end of summer, before cold and wet weather makes resurfacing more difficult. The full programme is on the council’s website: https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/find-planned-street-works
Councillor Lucy Hodge, Cabinet Member for Sustainable Transport Delivery, said: “Keeping our roads in good condition is one of the things residents rightly expect from us, and we are committed to delivering it through planned programmes like this as well as smaller reactive work our teams are out doing each day, like fixing potholes and carrying out inspections.
“Potholes can form quickly during winter with wet and cold spells, which has a big impact on road surfaces. Our highways teams have been working flat out fixing potholes, with 3,790 repaired since January, a five-year high.”
The council's highway maintenance was ranked fourth out of 111 local authorities in the National Highways and Transport Network Satisfaction Survey, up from eleventh last year, reflecting the council’s ongoing efforts to improve its highway network.
The council has been using different ways to reduce its carbon emissions as it carries out resurfacing. Last year two schemes were delivered using in-situ recycling, which uses the existing road material to form the new surface, and a carbon-neutral trial method was used in Whitchurch. This year the council will spend £600,000 to deliver four micro-asphalt surfacing schemes which produce fewer carbon emissions than conventional resurfacing.
Surveys and inspections conducted by the council’s highways team help identify and prioritise highways that need to be resurfaced and this gives rise to the programme of work each year. Residents can also report issues through FixMyStreet.
The council will be implementing Section 58 restrictions to each of the newly resurfaced roads which protects a road from certain utility works for up to three years and gives the council greater control over reinstatements if needed.
ENDS