With the road resurfacing now behind us, a quick review of the task followed by some FAQs.

In our tendering process we chose the larger vendor capable to surface all the roads in one day. In fact, with all the driveway entrances and some detours due to parked delivery vehicles, the surfacing task took an additional half day. That said, we were very happy with the service provided by Hazell & Jeffries, balancing urgency with flexibility & attention to detail, fixing lots of little side jobs not specified in the works order.

Thanks to fellow residents for your patience during the works. We went off schedule as the day progressed and incurred some disruption to traffic, but it was minimal considering it is a once-every-5-years activity. Special thanks go to our volunteer Estate Managers Phil & Bill for all their expertise and hard work building up to this over the last year. We have some more sweeping and line markings due to be done on Monday 17th, and a short list of minor repairs where trucks have dislodged the new surface before it was fully cured.

We also have several tonnes of 10mm granite chips available if any residents would like to use them. 

FAQs

Q1 – Haven’t you just put gravel on top of the existing road surface?
A1 – This tar&chip process is the same spec (and supplier) as used in 2015, so you will see the rough gravel surface to evolve to become the same compacted surface over time and use

Q2 – Why did you do it now? The roads looked fine
A2 – There were some small potholes and areas of crazing opening up at various points around the village. We work to stay on top of these, to avoid water penetrating the surface and causing further damage, but it was felt that these areas were appearing at an increasing rate and so worth unifying and resealing the entire surface.
A less obvious but very important form of wear on the road is “fatty” areas where the stones are pushed below the tar and leave a glossy smooth tar surface. This fatty surface is slippery in the rain and sticky, even molten, in hot summer days.The life expectancy of the tar & chip surfacing is 5 years. We were able to stretch this to 6 years through various maintenance works

Q3 – Why not do it ‘properly’ with tarmac?
A3 – These roads have evolved from gravel tracks with repeated layers of tar&chip over many decades. They don’t have the foundations that would be needed for modern day highway standards. A rough calculation to put these 4km of roads to an ‘adoptable’ standard is around £2.5million+. In order to do this for the next 5 year cycle would require ALL properties in Ifold to pay circa £1500/year for the next 5 years. If someone wants to propose this and coordinate 390 properties to agree, please do

Q4 – I’ve seen a gap in the new surface at XYZ
A4 – please contact ifold_estates_ltd@hotmail.co.uk and thanks for letting us know any issues you see. We’ll be working through a snagging list with the contractor over the coming days

Q5 – Why did you surface the Lanes?
A5 – This was a difficult decision and has been border-line for several years. Historically IEL has supplied road planings and residents have filled pot-holes themselves, but for a variety of reasons this was more and more difficult for the residents and IEL was more often paying a contractor. Even so, with the increased traffic load of delivery vans, and vehicles wandering off the road edge to avoid pot holes, the rate of wear and repair was going up and up. Assuming the new surface wears well (the test strip done 6 years ago held up very well) then surfacing will give a far superior surface for the same outgoings as pothole repair. We also spent time to liaise with horse riders and British Horse Society to specify the surface finish, which is particularly course to increase grip. As a bridleway, they have the casting vote and we felt it was really important to consult with them over this

Q6 – The schedule was not accurate
A6 – We did our best to provide a schedule, but it always came with the caveat that it could change due to weather or operational circumstances. The weather held off, but we did suffer from numerous delivery vehicles (supermarket, oil, concrete etc) blocking the road, and so detoured as needed. The morning schedule went to plan (as amended!) but the afternoon became ad hoc. The main priority was to complete the cul-de-sacs (Close & Wildacre) before school run to avoid big blockages. The contractor did try to manage traffic detours but it could have been done better. Next time, we could call for volunteers to assist, and so benefit from their local knowledge

Q7 – How much did that cost us?
A7 – We started the tendering process 12 months ago and entered in to dialogue with several local and national contractors. As we narrowed down to firm quotes the local suppliers were ten’s of thousands more expensive and we were unable to consolidate the difference. Overall we paid less in 2021 than in 2015 (with the same contractor) despite adding the Lanes, Ifold Bridge Lane, The Close and Wildacre Close. The 2015 contract included more expense due to necessary repair works which were not needed in 2021. We are grateful to the Estate Managers (past & present) for keeping the roads in a good state of repair

Q8 – Why didn’t you surface my cul-de-sac
A8 – IEL surfaced 100% of the roads that we are responsible for (and hold the title deeds): The Drive, Chalk Road, The Ride, The Close, Wildacre Close, Hogwood Road, The Lanes, Ifold Bridge Lane. There are several cul-de-sacs (e.g. Thistledown) that are held by separate management companies. This is a good opportunity to visually demonstrate IEL’s boundaries. If IEL owns it, it was surfaced

Q9 – Did IEL pay for Ifold Stores forecourt to be surfaced?
A9 – This is the exception to the statement given in A8 above. Craig took the opportunity to negotiate a side job with our contractor and was able to get a good rate based on our scale, which he paid directly to H&J

Q10 – Why are we asking for volunteers to do the footpaths?
A10 – The Twitten (aka “poo alley”, between Chalk Road and The Drive) and the footpath at the end of Hogwood Road are the responsibility of WSCC Rights-of-Way department and in their eyes there was no need to maintain or improve anything. They would be left as they were. However, residents had commented in the past that some parts of the footpath get very muddy over winter and hard to access. We had the opportunity to reclaim 10’s of tonnes of good quality granite chips from the road sweeper, and so asked permission from WSCC to put these on the footpaths. Since these areas are outside of IEL’s responsibility, it was appropriate to ask the community for volunteers. If we hadn’t asked for these stones, the road contractor would otherwise have transported them back to Oxford for washing and recycling for use on their next contract

Q11 – What happened to the road markings?
A11 – The contractor will re-apply the road markings on Monday 17th. All previous markings were recorded, and we plan to add a white line to demark the exit of Oak Way, where there has been an accident in the past

Q12 – I saw a contractor standing still – what are we paying for?
A12 – We negotiated a fixed price for the complete job, and the winning contractor was the largest scale operation by far. The primary cost is in the materials and the machinery needed to deploy it. The cost of labour was not a significant factor. On the day of surfacing the contractor had 25 headcount and the machinery didn’t stop from 7:30am to 6:30pm. Due to the delay in the schedule, the contractor returned for an additional half day and there was no cost implication to IEL

Q13 – Was all the activity in the Loxwood Road lay-by something to do with Ifold?
A13 – Yes. 400 tonnes of road planings were delivered there on Tuesday and used to re-profile the Lanes, then a further 400 tonnes of granite chips were delivered there on Thursday for the road surfacing