THE resurfacing of some roads in Renfrewshire has been delayed after the discovery of the carcinogenic material coal tar, it has been revealed.

Senior officers have put the brakes on work at certain locations as they develop an approach to dealing with the hazardous substance.

Councillor Chris Gilmour, Labour group environment spokesperson, warned the issue could have a “huge impact” on repairs going forward.

“It would be good to get regular reports back on how much or how little it’s damaging our proposed [works],” he added at the recent infrastructure, land and environment (ILE) policy board.

“I think particularly with potholes here, if you’re looking to do a pothole and it’s got coal tar in it and it just stops it, where do we go from there?”

Gerard Hannah, head of climate, public protection and roads, said it was “early days” as officers assess the extent of the problem in the area.

He explained: “Coal tar is a really interesting one in terms of how that’s developed over the last year or so. We’ve been gearing up as a service to respond to that.

“That ranges from supplying our pothole crews with the spray test kits that they take out on site, as well as doing the testing in advance of our resurfacing programmes.

“It is early days for us in terms of quantifying the scale of the problem across the area.”

Before the 1980s, tarmac binder materials and surface courses of roads were derived from coal tar.

However, bitumen has now replaced it as the substance used.

A report to the ILE board said: “Coal tar is a carcinogenic material and as such is now classified as a hazardous waste material.

“With the changes to waste classification, the council can no longer sustainably dispose of coal tar where it is identified as an issue and as such has commenced a programme of coal tar testing.

“We have primarily focused this testing on roads where planned resurfacing works are taking place.

“There are a few locations where the presence of coal tar has been identified and, as such, these resurfacing schemes have been postponed whilst an alternative approach to dealing with this issue has been developed.

“Officers have engaged with the commercial market and have identified the use of an innovative solution to recycle the material on site whilst ensuring the road surface received treatment to address the road defects present.

“We will be trialling this method during next year’s capital programme, with the roads postponed from this year’s programme being treated in this manner.”

Mr Hannah added: “We’re in single figures with the ones we’ve had to postpone this year, so that’s good, but it is early days in terms of the scale of the issue across our programmes.

“We will provide regular updates to board on this as we go through that process.”