More than a million square metres of Oxfordshire’s roads will be treated this spring to curb future defects, following an exceptional winter that led to a surge in pothole reports both locally and nationwide.

Eighty-seven roads are included in Oxfordshire County Council’s £8 million highway maintenance programme, which is scheduled to begin in the coming weeks.

The council and its principal highway contractor, M Group, will visit 62 towns and villages between April and June to carry out surface dressing across the network.

Councillor Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Transport Management, said: "The places with the best roads there are the ones that don’t get potholes in the first place.

"Oxfordshire has some of the busiest roads in the country, with 4.79 billion vehicle miles travelled in 2024. Heavy traffic puts huge strain on road surfaces.

"Reactive pothole repairs are expensive and inefficient. Preventative maintenance, such as surface dressing, is far better value and stops potholes forming in the first place."

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Richard Lovewell, M Group Business Director, said: "Surface dressing is the most cost-effective and efficient way to increase the life of our roads. It prevents water ingress, improves skid resistance and ultimately protects the carriageway from future potholes.

"We're proud to be supporting the council in delivering this forward-thinking investment in Oxfordshire's road network. Delivering a programme of this scale demands real teamwork between the council and M Group working alongside our partners Hazell & Jefferies and Wilson & Scott.

"My thanks go out to everyone involved in pulling this complex programme together and to the crews who will be working tirelessly on the ground."

Motorists are urged to look out for advance notifications and to drive with extra care on newly treated surfaces. Excess speed can dislodge loose chippings, risking chipped paintwork or broken windscreens, and there is a higher chance of skidding while the material beds in. An advisory 20mph limit will apply until all warning signs are removed.

Surface dressing follows patching of existing defects before a bituminous emulsion binder is sprayed onto the carriageway and immediately dressed with stone chippings. The approach seals the surface against water—one of the main causes of deterioration—reduces wear, restores skid resistance, extends the life of the road (delaying more costly structural work), delivers good value for constrained budgets, and allows large areas—up to 100,000 square metres in a single day—to be treated with relatively little disruption. The work is highly weather dependent and cannot be carried out in wet conditions.