Bournemouth businessman urges council to change times of road closures (From Bournemouth Echo)

Bournemouth businessman urges council to change times of road closures

2:00pm Saturday 27th October 2012 in News By Katie Clark

A businessman is urging Dorset County Council to change the times of the road closure on the Avon Causeway when works start in November.

Dorset County Council will be closing the road for 10 days when repairs begin from Sopley to Matchams Lane at Hurn from Monday, November 5.

Engineers will carry out the work to strengthen and resurface the road between its junction at Hurn and the bridge over the River Avon.

The route is used by thousands of motorists each day and is especially busy during morning and evening rush hours.

Roy Carder, who lives in Bransgore and travels along the route every day to his business at the Wessex Trading Centre in Poole, said the diversions will cause problems with traffic across the area.

He is asking the council to close the road in the morning from 9am, rather than 8am.

At present, the road will close from 8am-4.30pm Monday to Friday, but remain open on Saturday and Sunday.

“If they could just close it at 9am it would make life a lot easier – even if they had to work for a day longer,” said Roy.

“Each morning my journey, which is about 13 miles, takes me about 39 minutes.

“If I have to go either through Christchurch or to Ringwood, it will be an extra six or seven miles and the amount of traffic it will add to those routes would be incredible.”

Head of Dorset highways operations Andrew Martin said: “Because of the narrow width of the road, and the nature of the work to strengthen the underlying road structure, we have to close the Avon Causeway for the 10 days of work.

“We have spoken to local businesses on the route and informed them that wherever possible we will maintain access for them, but our work will inevitably cause delays.

“Drivers will need to allow extra time for their journey as the diversion route is significantly longer and these roads will be busier than usual.”

The diversion route from Hurn will be along Fairmile and Bargates to Christchurch town centre, then along Christchurch bypass to Stony Lane roundabout and through Burton, Winkton and Sopley towards the Avon Causeway.