NI’s ‘worst road’ fixed as new scheme aims to tackle potholes

A road so bad that it was once known as the worst in Northern Ireland has finally reopened after a £160,000 makeover.

Ferry Road in County Tyrone used to have severe defects including a pothole so deep councillor Malachy Quinn could stand in it up to his hips.

Quinn said the resurfacing scheme had made a huge difference to the lives of people who travelled along it regularly.

Now, in a bid to more efficiently tackle potholes and other defects, the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) has announced a new mapping project which will survey every inch of Northern Ireland’s road networks in minute detail.

The head of Gaist, the company carrying out the survey, said it would give Northern Ireland “the most understood road network in the world” and would help to make repairs and maintenance more efficient.

Quinn said the process to repair road defects was often laborious and that anything to make that easier was welcome.

“This took a lot of work and it’s just not myself,” he said.

“There’s other councillors, there’s other people being involved in it as well.

“Between meetings, on-site meetings at the council buildings, meetings with MLAs and eventually we got here.

“People just want a good service. It’s like any other public service that people are providing. As long as things are getting fixed, people are happy.”

Quinn said potholes were one of the main issues he dealt with as a councillor.

“A never-ending story is probably the best way to put it, because we have fantastic work done here but if you go across my electoral area you’re hitting defects all the time, you’re hitting a lot of potholes.

“I could throw a stone here and probably hit another road and hit another pothole.”

The new mapping scheme was announced at the launch of the DfI’s draft road maintenance strategy on Tuesday.

Speaking at the launch, echoing Quinn’s comments, Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins said in her 12 years as an elected representative, the condition of the roads was probably “the single biggest issue for people on a day-to-day basis”.

In the past financial year the DfI spent £1.15m compensating people for damage to their vehicles caused by road defects.

Sinn Féin minister Kimmins said the digital road survey was a way of “working smarter” to tackle problems.

“The funding situation is still extremely challenging so this will use digital technology to look at the road condition, be able to get us real detailed data much quicker, with less resources required and help us to make more targeted decisions in terms of improving our road network,” she said.

“For people on the ground, the most important thing is that they will see the tangible outcomes of this.

“I hope that we can see real improvements in the not so distant future.”

The mapping is carried out by cameras attached to survey vehicles travelling around the road network, capturing images as they travel and feeding back information on the state of the road surface.

The vehicles in the mapping project look similar to a car that captures images for Google Street View, ordinary vehicles with cameras attached to their roofs.

The data on the state of the surface can then be examined by engineers on desktop computers.

This can then be used to decide what problems should be prioritised and what sort of maintenance should be carried out.

Mapping is expected to be completed by April.

Stephen Birdsall, chief executive of Gaist, said it meant work that previously would have required an engineer to drive around inspecting different parts of the network could now be done from an office.

“This is one of the most exciting projects we’ve ever undertaken,” he said.

“We’ve done bigger projects in terms of surveying more roads, but actually this is an entire country that we’re looking at here.

“We’re going to be mapping every inch of what’s out there.

“That will mean this will be the most understood road network, probably in the world.

“There’ll be nothing that we won’t know about the road network in terms of its condition, the rate that it’s declining, where we need to put different treatments to get the best value for money.”