New equipment will help improve road resurfacing in Bucks

Transport for Bucks has revealed details of its new piece of equipment to help aid its road resurfacing work this summer.
The Entyre Chipper Spreader - Bucks County Council's new piece of technology - in actionThe Entyre Chipper Spreader - Bucks County Council's new piece of technology - in action
The Entyre Chipper Spreader - Bucks County Council's new piece of technology - in action

The Etnyre Chipper Spreader is being used for the surface dressing programme this year.

The spreader can put road chippings out across a carriageway width of up to 6.1m – a 30% increase on the maximum width previously possible.

It contains an on-board computer which manages the rate of the spread of the chippings so that material usage can be improved.

The speed of the surface dressing process can also be varied, improving efficiency on roads where the machine can be fully extended.

In Buckinghamshire this means that some of the more minor roads can be treated in one spread, minimising or even eliminating joints, which reduces road closure time and improves the effectiveness of treatment.

Eurovia Specialist Treatments, the contractor responsible for the surface-dressing programme, has just two crews in the country that use these machines and Transport for Bucks is using the technique, which is described as 'innovative' on all 27 of its surface-dressing sites.

Bucks County Council's deputy leader and cabinet member for transportation Mark Shaw said: "This exciting technology is great news for us.

"Putting surface dressing down in one clean sweep will reduce the time on site - but more importantly, no joints means a more robust finish, which is less prone to failure, so improving value for money for us.

"I am really pleased this is something we have secured for use in Buckinghamshire this year."

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