Resurfacing of The Homend in Ledbury begins in August

Herefordshire Council has confirmed its highways team will be resurfacing The Homend from Tesco to the railway station in mid-august.

This comes as a relief to many in the town, with regular concerns over the state of the road over the last few years.

Cllr Liz Harvey said it was good to have the work done at long last, saying: "The road from the Top Cross to Tesco was resurfaced around 2015 and that made a huge difference to the town centre itself.

"However, it would have been ideal to have had the entire route through to the station done at that time, because I certainly thought it needed it even back then.

WORK: The Homend in Ledbury

"Sadly the funds available in the road maintenance budget weren’t sufficient to do the whole run back then, and since then I have been repeatedly told that the road just hasn’t been high up enough in the prioritised maintenance programme to make the funding cut, given the budgets available.

"It has taken a lot of hard work behind the scenes – and a challenge to the approach used by Balfour Beatty to prioritise road surfacing works which gives lower scores to road sections where vehicle speeds are reduced – for this section of road to finally make it into the maintenance programme.

"I’d like to thank everyone who has been helpful and supportive of the lobbying I have been doing to make the case for this resurfacing to take place – despite the 30mph speed limit in place.

WORK: The Homend in Ledbury

"I’m grateful for their patience and understanding and am so pleased that persistence has finally paid off."

To minimise disruption, the road will be resurfaced in sections with the works being carried out at night.

Back in 2020, Herefordshire Council said it could cost up to £87million to repair the county's roads.

With a large backlog of work throughout Herefordshire, the Homend deteriorated to the point where some in Ledbury described it as looking like the surface of the moon.