County Road roadworks Walton: what are they doing? How long will it last?

The final stage of a much delayed roadworks scheme will begin on Monday night.

Liverpool Council has confirmed that essential works on the remaining stretch of County Road, Walton, will get underway from 7pm, on February 28.

The road will be closed from Spellow Lane to Hale Road, with a diversion via Walton Lane.

The closure will run until 6am from Monday to Friday until works are completed.

Cllr Dan Barrington, Liverpool Council cabinet member for environment and climate change, said: “Hopefully we get a smooth run and there’s no more setbacks.”

Delays to the project

As previously reported, the repairs have been delayed for a number of weeks as a result of an urgent design review needing to take place.

Huyton Asphalt were appointed as the new contractors for the scheme in October after its original contractors, VIAM, formerly trading as Kings, collapsed into administration in the summer of 2021.

According to the local authority, VIAM was months from completing the £5.9 million scheme but the road was instead left in a significant state of disrepair.

When will the work be finished?

It is hoped that the final stretch of unrepaired road will be completed by April this year, having already missed an initial deadline of this month.

Once the County Road works have finished, contractors will be redeployed back to Walton Lane with a resurfacing scheme there pencilled in to be completed by the start of June.

A 20mph speed limit will be in force on both County Road and Walton Lane until the scheme is complete.

What’s been said

Cllr Barrington acknowledged that there had been “deeply unfortunate setbacks which has caused huge upset, which we can only apologise for.

He added that with more than two years of disruption faced by residents and businesses on County Road, “patience is understandably in short supply.”

Cllr Barrington defended the decision to start resurfacing on Walton Road, claiming it ensured the contractor was not “standing idle” and said he was looking forward to the schemes being completed.