PLANS for a new junction on the A338 Spur Road connecting to Royal Bournemouth Hospital will be submitted to planners this month.

Phase one of the plans would see a link road from the A338 westbound peel off south of Blackwater and connect with Deansleigh Road via the Wessex Fields business park site, which is to be greatly expanded.

According to the intended schedule set out by the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for its Bournemouth International Growth (BIG) Programme, if the application is approved construction on phase one will start in Spring 2019 and take two years.

The application will also include the more controversial phase two - a bridge connecting the new road with the eastbound Spur Road - although funding for this phase of the scheme is not in place.

LEP director Lorna Carver said: "We are looking forward to the submission of plans for the development of Wessex Fields business park.

"This vital employment site will open up major economic opportunities for Dorset, boosting our economy and potentially creating over 2,000 jobs.

"In addition, the proposed development will safeguard existing jobs, improve connectivity, encourage sustainable travel and provide a second access route into the Royal Bournemouth Hospital."

The link road proposal has not been free from objections, with campaign group Friends of Riverside holding protests against the scheme, claiming it will result in greater congestion and air pollution and the loss of green belt land.

Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood has backed phase one but dubbed phase two "spaghetti junction", saying it would open green belt land near Townsend for development and "would involve destroying the oldest dwelling in Bournemouth, the Cob Barn, thought to be over five hundred years old, with huge historical significance to the area".

Bournemouth councillor Mike Greene, cabinet member for transport, said the existing road network in the area was "congested, inadequate and acting as a barrier to growth".

"Through additional government funding we have an opportunity to transform the transport infrastructure, by connecting the Wessex Fields business park and surrounding area to the A338," he said.