UK clients link up to Modern Asphalts

Developments from the client side of UK highways are being reported in Modern Asphalts through a new Client Side section within the magazine. In the first of this new regular column, Modern Asphalts profiles the UK Roads Board and its progress with projects of importance to all UK highway engineers and suppliers.

Further updates will follow in the magazine and within these news pages as the Roads Board’s projects progress. The current Chairman of the UK Roads Board, Leicestershire County Council’s Matthew Lugg, has welcomed the new link to Modern Asphalts for dissemination of information on the Roads Board’s work.

“I welcome the initiative and will be happy to contribute with news of developments from the UK Roads Board as and when they happen,” said Lugg. “A lot of good and imporrtant work is being progressed and it is vital that we communicate the progress to the entire UK roads sector.”

The UK Roads Board represents central and local government and highway organisations across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It was the first board to be set up within the UK Roads Liaison Group (UKRLG) in 2001, followed shortly after by UK Bridges, Street Lighting and Traffic Management boards.

Central to the efforts is the aim of ensuring harmonisation across the UK’s regions. The UKRLG and its boards were initiated by the Department for Transport to draw expertise back together after fragmentation of UK government, as well as to make heard the voices of a large number of non government organisations. The Roads Board has been working on projects related to furthering standards of highway maintenance, performance and surface condition monitoring.

“The Liaison Group really delivers and is a fantastic engine room of resources and expertise,” Matthew Lugg told Modern Asphalts. “The Roads Board has government representation and also practitioners representing the local authority groups, the Highways Agency and everyone with an interest in UK roads. There are parallels in streetlighting, bridges and traffic management and a lot of interaction and work goes on across all four boards.”

In the background is the UKRLG’s 2005 report Maintaining a Vital Asset. Its foreword is from Government Ministers of each UK region, recommending in certain terms that all authorities take heed of its contents. These include codes of practice developed or updated by the UKRLG boads – including the Roads Board’s code for highway maintenance – and a list of key practices authorities should adopt.

Among them is adoption of Highway Asset Management Plans (HAMP) – a big subject and a big task but also one that encompasses a lot of what UK highway authorities should be aspiring to. In simple terms, the principle of HAMP is improvement of highway management (and maintenance) through development of long term plans based on the value, condition and whole life cost of the asset. This brings in SCANNER (Surface Condition Assesment for the National Network of Roads) automated surface condition monitoring and several other Roads Board projects all linked to valuating road networks.

“Asset management is not a short term fix, but we are making good progress,” said Lugg. “The principles are embedded and we now have to bring the benefits to life, by using the data for the benefit of road networks.”

www.ukroadsliaisongroup.org/roads

Aesthetic and strong – Lafarge’s Axogold reaching further sites

Lafarge’s aesthetic asphalt, Axogold, has been applied to further prestige sites following pleasing results where clients want durability combined with a natural appearance. Contractor Spadeoak has laid the material at Tylney Hall Hotel in Hampshire and will be laying a further 3000m2 at Luton Hoo hotel and conference centre in March 2007.

The material has gone down well and has been well received,” said Lafarge Specialist Products Manager Phil Battle. “We have had a strong response from contractors using the material and their clients who are pleased with the results achieved by exposing the surface of the top gravel aggregate in the asphalt. We are now also getting enquiries from major housing developers keen to make use of the material and process.”

Lafarge’s Axogold material has been designed to be highly durable, making use of stone mastic technology, and to provide an aesthetic, natural appearance. Axogold contains a decorative gravel as its main aggregate. The asphalt is laid as a conventional material and then a Lafarge patented process is applied to expose the gravel colouring.

It is unusual to use decorative gravel in a strong SMA material due to difficulties with coating this type of stone, but Lafarge has found a way of overcoming this difficulty. The result, Axogold, gives clients a more cost effective alternative to coloured surface dressing and gravels bonded with a clear resin, for a durable and natural surface.

contact: phil.battle@lafarge.com