War declared on potholes as new tar sprayers added to County Hall's road fleet

Two new, 32-tonne tar sprayers have been added to Cork's County Council’s Roads Maintenance Fleet.

The tar sprayers are used for surface dressing and sealing road strengthening operations and will be based in the Council yards in Mallow serving North and East Cork and in Skibbereen serving West Cork.

The state of the art machines keep tar at an optimum temperature of 85C for surface dressing, with each tank fully insulated and equipped with oil-fired burners for onsite heating and an extendable spray bar reaching up to 4.5m to facilitate operations on roads of differing widths.

The new tar sprayers are expected to boost the Councils road operations during the season from February to November.

Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Christopher O’ Sullivan welcomed news of the recent addition of the trucks.

Chief Executive Tim Lucey noted that it demonstrates Cork County Council's commitment to improving the delivery of road services. 

“The purchase of these tar sprayers is part of an ongoing investment which has seen tar tanks, road graders, chip-spreaders and velocity patchers added to the Councils fleet over the last number of years," he said.

"The life expectancy of these tar sprayers is 20 to 30 years and they replace older fleet that have already been in service for over 20 years.”

Mayor O’Sullivan commented: “It is great to see Cork County Council continuing to invest in fleet replacement and new technologies to increase efficiency in delivery of one of its core services - that is ensuring the more than 12,000kms of roadway across the county, making up 12.5% of the entire national network, is maintained to a safe and high standard.”