You will have noticed a considerable amount of survey work is currently being carried out in this location! There are two borehole rigs, full traffic management traffic lights on Higher North Road, full lane closures on the length of the A601(M), a team of ecologists, two teams of drainage engineers and two bridge engineers all on site!
With that number of people about it may look like work is starting on the road..but this is NOT the case. What is happening is a co-ordinated programme for all the surveys that are required for this project.
By carrying out this work in this co-ordinated way the plan is to limit any potential disruption to traffic over a sustained period. The detailed information required to carry out the modelling and design works for the declassification of this road and the repairs to the bridges will come from the outputs from all of this survey work, along with the input that has already been received from initial consultation with local Councillors and others. This will allow the County Highways teams to produce detailed designs for any changes to the road layout as part of its proposed declassification.
These designs will be presented to interested parties and then to the wider public for their further input and views in an extensive formal consultation exercise. This was programmed to begin around May 2021 but has been pushed back due to current Covid19 restrictions as the traffic surveys, which are the key input into the traffic modelling, cannot currently be undertaken which will, in turn, delay traffic modelling and collection of necessary data.
Colleagues at County Council Engineers are unable to accurately predict exactly when traffic will return to normal but expect that September 2021 will be the earliest time that they will be able to obtain the credible data needed. That being the case, this will push the formal consultation out to around Christmas 2021.
The Town Council will be kept informed of updates via our County Councillor and County Engineers and we will, in turn, pass on relevant information to the local community on progress and the emerging plans.