FIVE 'patchwork-like' roads in Kearsley are set to be resurfaced at a cost of around £650,000.

Works on Pilkington Road, Church Road, Layton Drive, and Presto Street are expected to be completed by the summer.

Meanwhile, work on High Stile Street is expected to be completed by autumn.

Cllr Julie Pattison, who covers the Kearsley ward for Bolton Council, welcomed the news.

She said: “I’m ecstatic about this. The patchwork-like effect just doesn’t work.

“Church Road and Pilkington Road have been crying out to be resurfaced for years – as a councillor and as a road user I’m really pleased they’re finally being worked on.

“All of the councillors went out to the roads and we each listened to the residents and inspected the areas they were most concerned about to decide which should be our priorities.”

The project is expected to cost just under £650,000, with Pilkington Road dominating the majority of the budget (£247,000).

Church Road will cost £191,000 to resurface, and High Stile Street has added £106,000 to the total.

Layton Drive and Presto Street are smaller projects, costing £74,000 and £28,000 respectively.

The works have been partially funded by a one-off cash boost.

Last summer, Bolton Council pledged £10m to fix roads and pavements across the borough.

Each ward received an equal share of the pot, giving councillors £500,000 to fix problem highways. Councillors have been working with highways officers to come up with a programme of work defined by engineering priority.

The cash accounts for the largest investment in the roads in recent years and comes after a decade of severe winters.

In September, The Bolton News reported that the huge investment was still only a tenth of what engineers said they would need, as assistant director for highways John Kelly told councillors that fixing the whole highway network would cost more than £100m.

The £10m pot pledged by the council is being paid for by a £7m low-interest loan alongside £3m from the sale of council buildings, with the borrowing funded by dividends from the local authority’s shares in Manchester Airport.

An additional £2m investment for the borough was announced earlier in 2019, giving each ward an extra £100,000 to work with.

Cllr Pattison said pavements would be another priority moving forwards.