More than one million square metres of carriageway have been treated as part of a £7million programme aimed at preventing potholes.

As part of its highway maintenance contract with Oxfordshire County Council, Milestone Infrastructure has completed a programme of county-wide surface dressing, treating 1,011,803 m2 of roads over 42 working days with 19,000 man-hours worked in total.

This is equivalent to roughly 300 lane kilometres or the distance from Oxford to York.

The work was completed in more than 50 towns and villages making it the biggest programme of its kind undertaken in Oxfordshire for at least 20 years.

 Surface dressing is described by the council as a “cost-effective highways maintenance measure”  and involves applying bituminous emulsion onto the road as a binder.

It is said to extend the service life of a road on average by eight to 10 years.

This is followed immediately by the application of chippings.

This seals the road surface to keep out water, one of the major causes of deterioration and potholes.

The programme is part-funded by the government, with £2.629 million coming from the Department for Transport’s road resurfacing fund.

Councillor Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for transport management, said: “Prevention is better than cure and surface dressing is one of the most cost-effective methods of roads maintenance when it comes to preventing potholes developing.

“We know how important the quality of our roads is to our residents and this £7m programme, the largest of its kind in Oxfordshire for 20 years, will help keep many miles of highways in a better condition for years to come.”

The programme was finished eight days behind schedule due to wet weather between April and May period.

The county council said that 13.5 days were lost due to the weather and a further day was lost due to local elections.

Richard Lovewell, business director for Milestone’s Oxfordshire Highways contract, said: “We’re proud to have completed Oxfordshire's biggest programme of this kind in 20 years in partnership with Oxfordshire County Council and our valued supply chain partners Hazell and Jefferies.

“We have treated over a million square metres of roads in just 42 days. This will help to extend the life of the roads, cut long-term costs and keep the people of Oxfordshire moving.”

Last winter 26,000 potholes were repaired by Oxfordshire County Council with the annual number increasing in the calendar year.

In 2022, there were 21,598 potholes reported across the county with 21,060 being fixed costing £2,013,821.

Across the following year, the number of reported potholes increased to 36,900. Out of this, only 185 were not repaired.

It cost £2,806,728 for the 36,715 potholes to be fixed in 2023.

This year, data shows that 14,105 have been reported to the county council up to April and that 13,244 have been already fixed with £963,911 spent.

If this figure is projected for the rest of the year, it would mean that 42,315 potholes would be expected to be reported to the council.