A NEW £4 million project to repair Worcestershire's roads has kicked off - with 300 routes set to benefit.

Worcestershire County Council has officially launched its latest surface dressing scheme to help prevent potholes forming.

It will run more for more than four months into the start of August, with bosses saying they will select roads deemed to be in the worst condition for the spruce-up.

Details of the first few parts of Worcestershire to benefit have also been released, with the village of Hinton first up followed by Sedgeberrow, Broadway, Badsey, Aldington and the centre of Evesham.

That stretch alone will take several weeks, with the authority then due to move into other parts of south Worcestershire such as Malvern and Worcester in mid-summer.

The method of surface dressing has proved controversial in the past, with the A449 in Claines coming under fire from nearby residents last year after the work resulted in a loud "droning noise".

And in 2014 a surface dressing effort in Worcester's Upper Tything led to plumes of dust from loose chippings covering all the properties in plumes of dust after a faulty batch of chippings was used.

Bosses at County Hall have data going back 13 years and say it is proving the most durable method in preventing defects popping up, which is where the big costs lie.

Full scale permanent pothole repairs cost taxpayers around £80 per defect, and 45,000 of those were done in just 18 months up to the end of last year.

Conservative Councillor John Smith, the cabinet member for highways, said: "The council is once again making a significant investment in the county's highways to repair potholes and resurface the roads.

"Surface dressing is a great cost effective way of maintaining our county's roads and is efficient as it can be done quickly, helping to cut down on road or lane closures that cause inconvenience to motorists."

The spending is slightly less than the record £4.5 million surface dressing programme which took place last year, although it will reach a similar number of routes.

Highways workers are aiming to surface dress around 150 miles of carriageway with the cash, and say people living in each street will be leafleted beforehand so they know about it.

Despite making severe cuts in many service areas the authority has opted to boost roads spending in recent years, with around £50 million sunk into it since 2011.