The UK’s first use of cold repaving has been described as a success as highway contractors on Northumberland’s A1 have pioneered a new method of road resurfacing that is 10 times faster than traditional methods.

Highways England’s contractor for the area, A-one+, which is a joint venture of Halcrow, Costain and Colas, has resurfaced 2.2km of the A1 at Brownieside in Northumberland with the use of cold repaving.

For the first time, the Wirtgen cold recycling machine is being used in the UK. The machine allows the road’s underlying layers to be recycled, churning up the old surface material, combining it with new material within the body of the machine then laying it back down immediately on the road behind.

Every year in Germany, over five million sq m of thin layers are paved in cold application but this is the first time that the technique has been used in the UK.

Here, the machinery is owned and operated by subcontractor Lane Rental Services, which purchased the equipment three months ago.

There are two models of cold recycling machines offered by Wirtgen; the 3800 CR and the 2200 CR, both of which have an integrated paving screed for in-situ cold recycling of carriageway pavement, however these may be adapted for the addition of bitumen emulsion, water cement slurry or foamed bitumen.

Lane Rental Services specified a custom-made 3200 CR, capable of paving carriageways of 3.2- to 5-metre widths, which is being used in Northumberland in conjunction with a Vögele Super 1900-3i tracked paver.

The road surface is initially prepared for the application of the thin overlay by cold milling machines with fine milling drums. This results in a fine profile of the milled roadway which created a substrate with which micro-surfacing can engage. The ‘valleys’ of the fine-milled profile engage the layers of the micro-surfacing, which in turn produces a smooth layer structure.