Council’s new roading operations and maintenance contractor Fulton Hogan Ashburton will initially concentrate on digouts and linemarking when it takes over the job on 1 December.

The five-year, $40.7 million contract also involves pothole repairs, replacing road signs, grading, street cleaning and ice gritting, and local companies have been sub-contracted to help out.

Infrastructure Group Manager Neil McCann said Fulton Hogan wanted to start the digouts early to make sure more could be done before Christmas.

“Digout repairs need good weather to have the best results and are calculated by the square metre. Over the life of the contract, Council expects over 87,500 square metres of digouts to be achieved.

“A digout is one of the most common repairs we carry out on our network and they are essentially for big potholes or pavement failures that can’t be permanently repaired with a pothole mix.”

The maintenance contract is a mix of routine work, like grading and fixing potholes, as well as programmed work like seasonal ice gritting and weed spraying.

Mr McCann said several sub-contractors would support Fulton Hogan.

“Tarbotton Land and Civil will continue to do the grading on our unsealed roads, Philip Wareing will do the ice-gritting, Delta will deal with the weeds and Wasteco will do the street cleaning.

“Fulton Hogan has the plant and equipment they need and a well-established team in Ashburton to maintain the condition of our roading network.

“Parts of our roading network are old and need a lot of attention and the challenge for us is to do the best we can with limited funding, and prioritising road safety.”

Council has one of the five largest networks in the country, with 2,622km of roads (1,522km sealed), 188 bridges, 239 traffic islands and about 10,000 road signs.