Work starts next week on a £5.7 million Somerset Council Highways scheme to replace a deteriorating 51-year-old concrete road and motorway junction.
The refurbishment of Junction 26 of the M5 along with the A38 Chelston link road near Wellington, which were built in 1974, is entirely funded by Government grants.
All sliproads at Junction 26, the roundabout and the A38 link road from the motorway to the Chelston roundabout will be closed from Sunday night, 15 June, until late September to enable the works to happen safely.
Access to the Foxmoor Business Park off the Chelston link road, will be maintained 24/7 during the works from the Chelston roundabout. to allow traffic to and from the business park only.
A38 link road
For the A38 link road, the council’s contractor Heidelberg will use an innovative technique known as rubblization to break up the existing concrete road surface using heavy machinery. Instead of removing 7,300 tonnes of concrete from site, the materials will be retained and recycled as sub-base for the new road.
This modern recycling method, often used on airport runways, will save 200 tonnes in carbon and around 1,130 lorry movements, compared to traditional road construction methods. This is achieved by removing the need to export waste material and quarry and import new stone.
This is better for the environment, but it also means the work will be completed faster, minimising disruption as much as possible.
J26 roundabout
The team cannot use the same technique on the J26 roundabout due to the height of the overhead bridges. This section will need an entire excavation of around one metre in depth in order to build the new surface.
The window and timescale for the work has been agreed with National Highways and is dictated by forthcoming M5 works, alongside the need to allow National Highways to access its gritting depot off the Chelston Link Road during winter.
FAQs
The Council has published a dedicated webpage with FAQs, including details on how to get in touch.
Somerset Council’s Lead Member for Transport and Waste Services, Councillor Richard Wilkins said:
We’ve engaged widely with local people and businesses over the last few weeks and thank you to everyone who attended one of our public drop-ins.
It’s fair to say from those conversations that most people recognise this work needs doing and welcome the fact the road is being replaced.
However, we do understand people have very real concerns about the road closure and there is no doubt this will be a very challenging scheme to deliver.
Doing nothing would mean we continue to patch the road piecemeal which is expensive and will create sporadic long-term disruption, and ultimately it will still need replacing. We have secured the money from Government, and this is the only available window if we want to get this done.
When completed we will have a new, smoother, quieter road surface with better drainage so please bear with us and plan your journey carefully while work is underway.
Jonny Hill, National Highways Route Manager said:
We work with our local authority partners in planning all roadworks near our motorways and A roads or where works affect our junctions.
Somerset Council shared their proposal, enabling quicker delivery of the scheme and a reduced period of disruption, and having reviewed their traffic modelling we were content that the level of impact and safety risks on the Strategic Road Network were acceptable.
We also required access to all four slip roads from October to run our winter maintenance programme from the Chelston depot and this was also factored into the window for the Council’s scheme delivery.
We will remain engaged with the Council throughout the works and monitor disruption on the strategic road network.
