A £1.45M road maintenance scheme is rolling out across the district next month.

The work, part of an annual programme, will see crews applying a surface dressing to many of the district’s roads throughout the spring and summer.

The method is quicker than full resurfacing, but highways officials say it can prolong the life of a road by up to ten years, if applied at the right time.

It needs to be undertaken in good weather, which is why the work is due to start at the beginning of next month and continue through the warmer months.

Council staff said they could not yet give a full list of road closures in the district, but that notices will be put up warning people when the work will start in their area.

Leaflets giving further advice will also be distributed a few days before work starts.

Steve Hartley, Bradford Council’s strategic director with responsibility for highways, asked motorists to be patient during the “short-term inconvenience”.

He said: “This work is part of a major programme designed to prolong the life of the highways across the region.

“We hope people can bear with the short-term inconvenience in the realisation that it is quicker than other forms of maintenance and will make the roads safer in the long term.”

The work in Bradford, set to cost approximately £1.45m across the district, is being funded by the Department for Transport and administered by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Similar work is also being undertaken in Calderdale, Leeds, Wakefield, York, Rotherham, Doncaster and Kirklees.

The process consists of a thin film of hot bitumen being sprayed onto the road, and then a spreader puts hard chippings onto the hot bitumen.

These chippings are then lightly rolled to form an interlocking surface. The road can then be driven over with care, with loose chippings being swept away. The road markings are then replaced.

Highways chiefs say this process means that the road surface is sealed to prevent water seeping in and causing damage, while also increasing the skid resistance of the surface to make it safer.

Although motorists can drive on the new surface immediately after the work is finished, they are being advised to drive slowly because there will be loose chippings at first.

The road will be swept after two or three days to remove these, and may be swept again a few days after that if needed.

Surface dressing is described as quicker than other maintenance techniques and causes less disruption to traffic.

Cul-de-sacs as well as main roads can be surface dressed.