Once the Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration is in Government, the Ministry of Transport and Works will not use concrete to patch asphalt roads.{{more}}

This declaration was made in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, by Senator Julian Francis, Minister of Transport and Works, in response to a question posed by St Claire Leacock, Member of Parliament for Central Kingstown.

Francis explained that patching asphalt roads with concrete will be very costly to the country in the long run, because of the different properties of the two materials.

“Concrete has a lower coefficient of thermal expansion and the different rates of thermal expansion between the two materials results in the fracturing of both materials,” the minister said.

“Concrete also shrinks as it matures, therefore when concrete is used to patch potholes in asphalt service roads, both the concrete and the surrounding asphalt will eventually crack and additional repair works will be needed”.

Additionally, Francis noted that concrete has a longer curing time, which can prove to be a problem on service roads.

“With asphalt, you can drive on it the minute the tar is laid on the road. Concrete, you have to wait four, six hours, depending on the temperature. What happens, you can end up with a depression in the concrete that you then have to dig up and repair because the depressions in the concrete caused by the tires of vehicles are as worse as the potholes that you are trying to fix in the beginning. So, it’s a waste of money, patching asphalt with concrete,” he said.

“As long as we are in Government, advised by the technical people in the Ministry…we will not want to have any patching of asphalt with concrete. It’s a waste of money”.(BK)