Earlier this year, National Highways started work on a £60m project to reconstruct and re-lay the concrete road surface of the A11 carriageway between Spooner Row and the Tuttles Interchange, as a part of a nationwide drive to revitalise concrete roads across the country.
Over the summer and autumn months, National Highways has reconstructed 8.6km of road on the northbound carriageway. In total work crews have:
• Removed 30,000 cubic metres of concrete, which could fill 15 Olympic sized swimming pools
• Laid 72,000 tonnes of new asphalt road surface
• Installed 10km of new drainage
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• Installed 6km of new safety barriers
The A11 carriageway was first laid in the 1990s. Decades of use and hundreds of millions of journeys had left the road in need of vital upgrades which will improve safety, create a smoother surface for vehicles to travel on and reduce noise for the 45,000 drivers who travel on it every day.
Andy Jobling, National Highways Programme Lead, said: "We are thrilled to complete the reconstruction of the northbound carriageway, which will provide a much smoother and quieter ride for tens of thousands of drivers every day. Our attention now turns to repeating the reconstruction process on the southbound carriageway.
"We know that living, working or travelling in and around a major construction scheme isn’t easy, so we're extremely grateful for the patience and understanding that motorists, local people and businesses have shown whilst we've been carrying out this vital upgrade."
National Highways will now switch their attention to the southbound carriageway. Using specialist machinery, work crews will remove the old concrete road surface and some of the foundations, before rebuilding the road with recycled material and a new asphalt surface.
As well as resurfacing the road the project will also see replacement kerbs installed, the drainage system refurbished, safety barriers replaced, new road markings and new reflective road studs.
The scheme is expected to be complete in summer 2023.
